Murphy – A proposed noise ordinance for Cherokee County will be the subject of a public hearing set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cherokee County Courthouse downtown.
Multiple members of the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners have signaled their reluctance to adopt the ordinance in its current form, instead preferring to focus on the local crypto mining facility that inspired the local legislation. Meanwhile, Anchor, the facility’s parent company, appears to be making an attempt to address residents’ grievances.
A noise-abatement structure is under construction on at least one corner of the controversial facility located off of Harshaw Road. According to Dr. Dan Eichenbaum, chairman of the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners, the finished wall will stand 12 feet tall and consist of material that is 12 inches thick.
“They have a design for the wall where their engineering people have told them it will be most effective,” he said.
Eichenbaum said Anchor hired a team of professional sound engineers from Atlanta to measure sound levels near the facility using calibrated sound equipment. The measurements were taken at at least a dozen sites, including at the homes of residents on various sides of the facility. Those measurements will act as a baseline to compare with measurements taken after the noise abatement structures are finished.
“When those are all up, they’ll go around and do the same measurements at the same locations again,” he said. “That’s how you do this, scientifically. You take a baseline, you do your changes, and then you take another reading to compare the baseline to the changes and find out if you’ve been effective or not.”
Commissioners voted during Monday night’s meeting to make the results of the sound study available to the public on the county government’s website at www.cherokeecounty-nc.gov.
The board also approved a motion to hire their own team of professional sound engineers to measure sound levels near the crypto mining facility, after District 5 Commissioner Jan Griggs raised the issue. The new study will take measurements at the same sites as the first study in order to compare the results.
The motions came after District 1 Commissioner Cal Stiles suggested abandoning the noise ordinance altogether and canceling the public hearing.
“As it is now, I don’t think it’s something we’re really going to do, and I think it’s going to be modified considerably if it were to be,” Stiles said. “So, until such time as there’s a better ordinance and something that’s more workable, I don’t even see any need with moving forward with it. Let’s just stop with that and get back on what we need to focus on.”
Einchenbaum categorized the public hearing as being an important part of a process, regardless of the ultimate fate of the proposed noise ordinance.
“We’ll sit there and we’ll takes notes,” Eichenbaum said. “Because if we do proceed, those notes will be very important to determine the public’s opinion and what their wishes are.”
Eichenbaum announced during the Dec. 6 board meeting that Anchor was planning to install the noise abatement walls and was manufacturing new container structures for their servers. He said fewer servers will be housed in each container, requiring less overall cooling.
“Anchor appears to be making a good-faith effort to (address) this problem,” he said. “They said, ‘OK, we are going to fix this.’ And from what I’m seeing, they are taking the appropriate steps to do so.”
An online petition change.org seeking to “Ban crypto-mines in Cherokee County” had 1,555 signatures as of Monday.
The board of commissioners fielded more than an hour of public complaints about crypto mining in Cherokee County during the Dec. 6 meeting, when the Cherokee County Noise Ordinance of 2022 was announced. The proposed ordinance would not take effect until June 1, 2022, if adopted, giving residents and businesses time to remedy any noise issues without penalty.
Under the ordinance, penalties would be imposed for disturbances such as, “Any sound exceeding 100 dB(A) as measured from any point not located on the property upon which the sound
originates.”
The ordinance also prohibits, “Any sound created or caused by any source in excess of 50 dB(A) that has a continuous duration of 1 hour or more as measured from any point not located on the property from which the sound originates.”
County attorney Darryl Brown said during the meeting that Cherokee County’s current noise ordinance is “completely unenforceable,” and similar ordinances on the books in other counties have already been invalidated by courts. His goal was to craft an ordinance that was both enforceable and doesn’t have unintended consequences for residents who do not live near one of these crypto mining facilities.
“What you do on your own property is up to you,” Brown said. “How it affects folks who are not on your property, that is where this ordinance kicks in.”
A first offense for a violation of the ordinance would be punished by a fine of no more than $50. A subsequent offense would be punished as a Class 3 misdemeanor. Upon receiving criminal process for any violation of this ordinance, the accused shall have 90 days to abate the cause for the violation. Abatement may serve as a defense to the violation.
The ordinance lists a variety of exemptions ranging from “Discharge of firearms on private property” to “Machinery for lawn, timber harvesting or processing or agricultural use between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., local time.”
A full copy of the ordinance can be found online by visiting www.cherokeecounty-nc.gov and clicking the “Public Hearing Notice” at the top of the page.