Corey Seidel measures the decibels outside the Atlas Power crypto mine last week.
WILLISTON, N.D. (KFGO) – Residents west of Williston were hopeful for a few hours on Tuesday, June 20, after the Williams County Commission voted unanimously to instruct the local power co-op to shut off electricity in a portion of a local cryptocurrency mine. But Corey Seidel said he knew the effort had failed by nightfall, when the servers were still operating at their usual levels.
“It still sounds like a jet plane taking off,” Seidel said.
Seidel lives in the Judson township, just south of the data center. Only 420 feet separate his property line and that of Atlas Power’s data center. The nearest server is approximately 800 feet from Seidel’s doorstep, where he said the decibel levels regularly register between 62-75. Vacuums and hairdryers typically run at about 70 decibels.
The county instructed Mountrail-Williams Electric Co-operative (MWEC) to shut down the power to Phase 2 of the joint project by Atlas Power and FX Solutions after the companies failed to complete required work on the facility. But MWEC countered by issuing a court summons and asking a judge to intervene. No court date has been set, and the power remains on at Atlas.
Phase 1 of the project was completed and started operating last year. Construction on phase 2 started shortly thereafter and its servers started running this spring without the companies having received a certificate of occupancy from Williams County, setting up the standoff that led to the commission vote to cut the power. Basic construction, roads, safety measures, and noise mitigation efforts were among the outstanding work the commission cited in its decision.
At a previous commission meeting, FX Solutions President Rick Tabish disagreed with residents’ claims about the noise and safety violations happening at the facility. Seidel says he spent $6000 on a professional-grade sound level reader so he could check the decibels coming from the facility after disparities surfaced between what residents and FX Solutions employees were reporting to the commission.
Tabish met with the Judson township this spring and gave indications that noise mitigation efforts were underway, but residents say they have yet to hear any evidence of that.
Seidel said people surveying the property in the fall of 2021 told him a storage company had purchased the property, which up until that point had been an alfalfa field. The property had been zoned heavy industrial for over a decade, but most residents say they had no idea. Seidel said real estate agents have told residents that their property values have diminished significantly since the data center moved in.
Lacie White is another Judson township resident. Her house is less than 300 yards from the data center. She said members of her family have lived in that spot for 30 years and up until a year or so ago, it was peaceful, with only the occasional rumble of jake brakes or other highway noise filtering over from Highway 2. But she measured the decibel level by the window in her 7-year-old daughter’s room on the eve of the commission vote and it was 67.
“My daughter wakes up in the middle of the night and she struggles to go back to sleep because that’s all she hears,” White said.
The World Health Organization’s guidelines for community noise recommend less than 30 decibels in bedrooms during the night for a sleep of good quality and less than 40 decibels of annual average outside of bedrooms to prevent adverse health effects from night noise.
The decision by Atlas Power and FX Solutions to locate the $1.9 billion data center was a much-heralded one by Governor Doug Burgum and other state leaders. When he made the announcement in January of 2022, Burgum said the crypto mine would be one of the world’s largest.
“When Governor Burgum was the one to dig the first shovel of dirt out of it, that kind of squashed our dreams of having the state do anything to help,” White said.
White said she’s disappointed that MWEC refused to cut power, but she said also understands if they have legal obligations preventing them from doing so. Seidel said he wished the county had been more proactive from the outset to inform residents and hold Atlas and FX accountable.
Josh Teigen is the state’s Commissioner of Commerce. He said the state is unlikely to intervene in the matter.
“It’s a complex situation, because this is a huge customer and huge revenue driver for Mountrail Williams Co-Op. At the same time, any company that we bring into the state, we want them to be good partners. But from a state level, really this is a local issue, and the locals know that cost-benefit better than anybody. Our hope is that both sides come to a resolution, then everyone can move forward and get back to business,” Teigen said.
Teigen said if the state were to take any action it would likely be the Public Service Commission’s responsibility to step in, but Lacie White said she contacted the PSC and received a response saying it had no jurisdiction over the matter.
Meanwhile in Williams County, the crypto servers drone on, with no obvious signs of relief on the horizon for the people who live within earshot of the Atlas mine.
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