This is the last of three articles about Michigan communities organizing to stop the construction of energy-intensive computing facilities.
A log cabin building surrounded by forest in the expansive wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula houses the Lake Superior Academy, a school focused on environmental education for its K-5 students.
The Dafter Township property was an ideal setting for its programming, until March, when a bitcoin mining operation came online directly across the street. The mine’s loud, steady hum forced students indoors and disrupted their education, school officials reported. Birds the students once tracked even seemed to be driven off by the din.
“Prior to the bitcoin mine moving in, it was just a beautiful spot for learning,” the school’s director, Susie Schlehuber, told a local news outlet in June. “Our whole school philosophy, everything we were founded on, has been disrupted because of the noise.”
In July, the school sued and secured a temporary restraining order requiring the mine’s owner, Florida-based Odessa Partners, to shut down as the lawsuit was litigated. The two sides are currently in mediation. Odessa did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Climate News.
The mine has stirred up an ongoing saga that has resulted in the legal battle and drawn outrage from residents who have demanded answers from local leadership about the operation’s energy use, water use, water pollution and impacts on utility rates, among other issues. Bitcoin mines require huge amounts of electricity, and most consume high levels of water to cool their servers.
Some residents are mobilizing to push for more protections against bitcoin mines in municipalities across the Upper Peninsula. A nearby township put a moratorium in place; other municipalities are considering taking action.
The controversy has been a “wake-up call,” said Kalvin Carter, project director for Up North Advocacy, a nonprofit.
“It’s really the wild west with the mines because there are no regulations, it’s just go do it while you can,” Carter said. “A lot of these communities and boards don’t know what a bitcoin is, and it’s hard to regulate something when you don’t know what it is.”
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He said he fears data centers, which bring similar problems, will come next if protections aren’t put in place.
Dafter Township, a small town of about 1,300 people just south of Sault Ste. Marie in the eastern Upper Peninsula, is among flashpoints in Michigan in which grassroots campaigns from across the political spectrum have, or may, derail plans for data centers and bitcoin mines.
The Upper Peninsula is attractive to the operations because of its cool climate and abundant access to water, and the Odessa mine is one of three operating in the region.
Carter said many residents were dismayed to learn that the Cloverland Electric Cooperative, which serves much of the Upper Peninsula, has advertised for bitcoin mines and was involved in bringing the Odessa mine to Dafter Township to generate more revenue.
Odessa’s mine is composed of six metal pods housing large computers that constantly run as they solve complex equations to earn bitcoin, which generates profits for Odessa. The pods sit on 10 acres just across the street from the school, and the project’s fans for cooling the equipment are what generates the din.
Sound readings taken on the school property soon after the mine came online exceeded 70 decibels, which is similar to the sound of a vacuum cleaner.
Michigan does not have regulations in place that specifically provide oversight for bitcoin mines, and proposed legislation aims to incentivize the industry’s growth across the state, and would bar state or local governments from banning cryptocurrency.
It is unclear if the bill has enough support to pass, but people in the Upper Peninsula are not waiting on the state to act, said Chloe Kannan, a resident who works with a small group of volunteer residents working on the issue.
“People are starting to see what this is doing to Wisconsin and other communities across the country, and we know we’re on the largest body of freshwater in the world, and we know we’re a target,” Kannan said.
“It Was All Stripes of People”
The mine began operations as Lake Superior Academy reportedly put plans into motion for the addition of two classrooms that could accommodate 40 additional children to its current student body of about 90. For now, those plans are on hold. Despite the disruption, the school put up a Facebook post that read “Bitcoin is cool, but not near a school.”
As news of the problem spread,…