Murphy – A moratorium on high-impact land use was allowed to expire, two Cherokee County commissioners revealed during a candidate forum Thursday night.
The moratorium, first put in place in 2023, was intended to temporarily suppress development of things like nuclear waste dumps and gravel extraction pits. It was precipitated by an alarming growth of crypto-currency plants in the county.
The plants, referred to as “crypto mines,” use high-capacity computer servers to generate crypto currency. They use huge amounts of electricity and generate extreme noise from industrial cooling fans. Three plants were established in the county at the time the moratorium was put in place.
The board of commissioners enacted the moratorium to allow time to develop a land use policy, rejecting the idea of zoning that other counties and municipalities have used successfully to protect against crypto mines and generative AI plants, like the one being expanded off of Airport Road in Marble.
County Commissioner Ben Adams was put in charge of developing the land use policy, but at some point since then the process was quietly dropped. Commissioners Dan Eichenbaum and Cal Stiles revealed the development.
Eichenbaum said county attorney Darryl Brown, who he described as the finest attorney, advised against enacting ordinances that could pit the county against billion-dollar corporations with huge legal teams. The difficulty is enforcement, he added, giving an example of the county paying $600 to collect a $100 fine.
Stiles said the county put a lot of time, effort and dollars into researching the issue, only to find out that there would probably be an undesirable ripple effect if such an ordinance was adopted.
“We have to protect the pocketbook,” Stiles said, adding that an executive order from President Donald Trump’s administration favoring AI industries would likely supersede any local ordinance.
As Brown put it, Stiles asked, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
The best the county can do is resist zoning and ensure that high-impact technology industries are taxed appropriately, Stiles said.
Since the moratorium was put in place, a crypto mine in Marble was switched over to generative AI and is undergoing a multimillion-dollar expansion. Critics and neighboring residents complain about the high-use, high-impact industries in their neighborhoods, worrying about loud noise, roaming power outages and huge demands for water to cool the equipment.