County commissioners will have to wait a month to hear a presentation from BrightRidge officials on steps the utility plans to take to address noise complaints at a bitcoin mining operation in rural Washington County.
Board Chairman Greg Matherly said Friday BrightRidge officials have promised to offer solutions to the problem when commissioners meet in July.
Officials from BrightRidge were asked to come to the board’s June meeting after commissioners heard from residents in the Limestone community last month. Craig Ponder, pastor of New Salem Baptist Church, said his congregation and neighbors of the community were being disturbed by the constant noise from the computers and cooling fans used by Red Dog Technologies in its cyber mining operation.
Bitcoin mining is a process that produces cryptocurrency by using computers to solve very complex math problems.
“At request of Commissioner Kent Harris, BrightRidge will come next month to discuss solutions to the noise problem,” Matherly said.
He noted BrightRidge officials said the engineer who is involved in addressing those noise concerns was unable to attend Monday’s meeting of the commission.
Matherly also said a presentation from Northeast Tennessee Regional Economic Partnership asking the county contribute $50,000 to help market a remote worker relocation initiative was also removed from the commission’s monthly agenda.
Johnson City commissioners voted in April to contribute $100,000 to a marketing campaign by NETREP, the Johnson City Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association to bring remote workers to the region.
Mitch Miller, the CEO of the regional partnership, said NETREP will be meeting with county budget officials next month to explore “other alternatives for funding” the remote worker relocation incentive program.
