Appalachian town promised a bitcoin mine driven economic boom got pollution and an eyesore

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The unincorporated clutch of homes and churches at the base of the Appalachian Mountains offers expansive vistas of lush farmland, thick woods and towering ridges in all directions. Neighbors know one another. Most residents have family bonds spanning generations or moved to this tranquil patch to escape city noise.

Instead, the noise came to them in April last year when the Tennessee-based firm Red Dog Technologies opened a plant in Limestone to mine (or create) new bitcoin, the original and still-largest cryptocurrency.

The process relies on massive computers performing complex calculations - all while kept at a constant temperature by equally massive cooling fans - and that can get noisy.

The Limestone mine operates day and night, growing louder at night and on weekends when bitcoin's electricity-hungry computers can take advantage of down time and lower prices on the electricity grid and ramp up their algorithmic-solving power.

"We couldn't have people over to gather in our front yard because we could hardly hear one another talking," said Preston Holley, whose home sits across the street from the mine.

Appalachia, with its cheap electricity from coal, natural gas and hydro, was already attractive to bitcoin miners when China, which dominated world production, cracked down on such operations last summer, worried about the volatility of digital currencies.

Companies forced out of China began scouting new locations across rural America. Appalachia, more accustomed to coal-caked helmeted workers than tech-savvy blockchain enthusiasts, saw an influx of miners.

But while supporters tout economic benefits such as an expanded tax base and job creation, residents in areas that initially welcomed crypto mining are now experiencing buyer's remorse.

Kent Harris, a Washington County commissioner, looks back on his vote authorizing the Limestone crypto mining operation and shakes his head.

"It looks like a German POW camp," Harris said of the bitcoin mine, which is surrounded by barriers, cameras and fencing topped with razor wire.

"I have never regretted a vote like this one. I sure wish I could take it back," he said.

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A lawsuit filed by the county in November accused Red Dog Technologies, the mine owner, and BrightRidge, the local electricity provider that owns the land where the mine is located, of zoning violations and causing "immediate and irreparable injury, loss, and damage."

"We thought it was a data center going in there," Harris said, noting that the zoning application had mentioned a "block chain data center."

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