In Niagara Falls, bitcoin mining is bringing a new roar to town

Agence France-Presse

November 3, 2022 | 13:41

NIAGARA FALLS, USA — In the US border town of Niagara Falls, residents accustomed to the soothing roar of the famous falls recently discovered a much less pleasant sound: the “haunting hum” of bitcoin mining farms.

“I get four hours of sleep, maybe because of the constant noise,” said Elizabeth Lundy, an 80-year-old retired hairdresser. “I can hear the noise even through the storm windows.”

On a sunny October morning, a mechanical whirring could be clearly heard on Lundy’s porch. The noise turned into a deafening din as one walked two blocks towards Buffalo Avenue where the American bitcoin miners operate.

Bitcoin mining farms have multiplied in the US since China stopped this activity in 2021. The US is now emerging as a global leader in the industry.

Attracted by the cheap hydropower available in Niagara Falls, Blockfusion took up residence in a former coal plant there in 2019, followed by US Bitcoin in 2020, which operates from a former sodium plant.

US Bitcoin installed hundreds of noisy fans outside, necessary to cool the thousands of computer graphics cards that heat up while solving the complex equations required to earn them cryptocurrency.

“A 747 Jet”

“It sounds like a 747 jet,” said Frank Peller, a 70-year-old resident who lives in a brownstone more than a mile from this crypto mining operation.

“It is highest in the morning, at night and if there is high humidity and breeze,” he added.

He could once sit in his garden and hear the roar of Niagara Falls more than two miles away. But now, “you can’t hear it at all” and you can’t avoid “the roar of bitcoin mining every day.”

Bryan Maacks, who lives closer to Buffalo Avenue, described a “haunting, vibrating hum” — an annoying knocking that has run through his house day and night since last winter.

“It’s very mentally terrifying. It’s like having a toothache 24 hours a day every day,” Maacks, 65, said.

He said he wears headphones all the time and uses a fan to block out the noise to fall asleep.

Maacks launched a petition and made a “US Bitcoin Stop the Noise” sign on the back of his red pickup truck, which he parked for weeks in front of the company.

“The noise pollution of this industry is like nothing else that’s been there,” Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino said in his office decorated with paintings of the famous falls.

That’s quite a statement in a city that embraced heavy industry for decades.

Faced with a flood of complaints, mainly regarding US Bitcoin, the mayor passed a moratorium on any new mining activity until December 2021, and in early September he set strict noise limits of 40 to 50 decibels near residential areas.

‘Noise screen’

US Bitcoin said it is taking steps to address the issue.

“Immediately after these concerns were flagged, we erected a plastic barrier,” the company said in a statement to AFP.

“We also conducted acoustic studies and had plans drawn up for a larger noise reduction wall” that was prevented from being built by the moratorium, the company said.

In the nearby town of North Tonawanda, Canadian mining company Digihost is also facing the ire of local residents, and has undertaken the construction of a soundproof wall more than six meters high, at an estimated cost of several hundred thousand dollars, Mayor Austin Tylec said.

In Niagara Falls, city hall ordered the closure of the two bitcoin farms in early October until they comply with new local ordinances.

While both companies say they are cooperating with the city, only Blockfusion had shut down its processors by the end of October and reduced the number of fans running, with US Bitcoins still running at full capacity, an AFP reporter found.

“If they continue to refuse to comply with our order to stop, then we will have to be in court,” Restaino said.

One such legal battle is already pitting bitcoin farm Red Dog Technologies against local governments in Tennessee. Other complaints of noise pollution near data centers have arisen from North Carolina to Pennsylvania.

“I’m going to protest until the hum goes away, until I get the roar of the falls back, because that’s what I used to hear,” Maacks said.