4 May 21 - 27, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents How You Gonna Keep ’Em Off the Farm? Fears of pollution, noise and damaged livestock have rural communities struggling to hold back the tide of big data and defend a way of life. BY AUSTIN WOOD AND EMMA RUBY Editor’s note: Rural homeowners living not far from Dallas have taken to the courts and their city councils to try to halt the spread of data and crypto-mining centers they say are gobbling up resources, covering farmland and ruining their once-quiet communities. So far, they’ve had litle success, as these two stories from staff writers Austin Wood and Emma Ruby show. L awsuits continue to be filed over a controversial crypto mining operation in Hood County that some residents say has disrupted life in the primarily rural county. A group of those living within a mile of the crypto mine filed a lawsuit against the facility’s operator, MARA Holdings, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on May 1. The lawsuit alleges noise from the operation has caused physical and emotional harm to residents, who are asking for financial damages in excess of $1 million. According to the filing, the facility’s cool- ing fans constantly emit “unbearable” noise and low-frequency sound, which have al- legedly led to health problems for locals, in- cluding cardiac issues, tinnitus, permanent hearing loss and insomnia. The lawsuit also alleges that noise from the MARA Holdings facility has resulted in adverse effects on live- stock — notably, the filing lists “unexplained” chicken deaths — lowered property values and an inability for residents to sell their land. The crypto mine has caused significant backlash from Hood County residents since it was built in 2022 for Compute North, a crypto mining company that went bankrupt later that year. In 2024, they unsuccessfully at- tempted to create their own municipality to exert regulatory authority that the county, thus far, seems to lack. The plant manager was issued 37 noise citations by Hood County con- stables through April 2024, the lawsuit states, although he was later acquitted by a jury. This month’s lawsuit is tied to two exist- ing personal injury lawsuits against the nearly $5 billion company that were consoli- dated in April, Adair v. Marathon Digital Holdings and Engle v. MARA Holdings. Last week, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor consolidated the three cases. A separate lawsuit, Citizens Concerned About Wolf Hollow v. Marathon Digital Hold- ings, seeks an injunction to prevent the MARA facility from creating “unreasonable noise.” The case is backed by Earthpiece, a legal nonprofit specializing in public-interest environmental litigation, and has been twice remanded to local courts by federal judges. The cases come at a time when life in the county is being increasingly upended by tech-centered industrialization. With a pop- ulation of just under 62,000 in 2024, resi- dents have navigated an uneasy, often tense debate over the growing development of data centers, crypto mines and the power plants needed to supply them. ‘It Was Our Happy Place’ Before he moved to Hood County in 2021, Danny Lakey said Granbury and Hood County were a quiet getaway for his family from the urban sprawl of Arlington. “It was our happy place,” Lakey said. “So when we had the opportunity to come out here, we decided that it would be a good thing to come and live in the country, have a little bit of land and have some peace and quiet.” His property sits half a mile from the crypto mine. He and his wife have kept the TV on at night since the noise started, and he said he hasn’t slept well for nearly 4 years. Lakey is a plaintiff in one of the three personal injury lawsuits against MARA. MARA representatives have repeatedly insisted that the sound coming from the fa- cility complies with state and federal regula- tions. Noise emitted from the facility routinely falls between 63 and 78 decibels, according to a third-party analysis cited on the crypto mine’s website. In a statement to the Observer, a spokesperson for MARA Holdings said the company was “aware of the most recent filing” and is “committed to being a responsible, long-term neighbor and partner in Granbury and Hood County.” “Allegations over sound levels have been previously reviewed, including through a county-commissioned sound study that found our operations are well within appli- cable legal limits,” the statement reads. Under state law, any noise exceeding 85 decibels is considered a public nuisance. A 2024 Hood County study also found the crypto mine’s noise compliant with state regulations. Lakey regularly takes decibel readings at his property. The most recent readings he has taken fall within the legal limit at 73 to 78 decibels, he said, but the noise is still too much for him. “My house is a log house. People call it a Cracker Barrel because I have rocking chairs, and I have this long, covered front porch,” he said. “We don’t use those hardly anymore at all, because it’s not even fun be- ing outside. It just takes it away.” He said he and other neighbors met with MARA representatives to ask them to miti- gate the impact of the crypto mine. They told him changes would be made, he said, but the noise level hasn’t improved. MARA has taken steps to reduce the noise. As of 2024, 67% of the site is immer- sion-cooled, meaning equipment is envel- oped in liquid to reduce noise and heat. The company has also added a 24-foot-tall bar- rier wall around parts of the crypto mine, which the most recent lawsuit alleges did not mitigate noise and instead “has served to amplify and worsen the noise.” “The closer you are to the sound, the more effective the wall is,” Lakey said. “They’ve got 20 acres worth of machines and that, so it doesn’t help.” Lakey was one of the leading voices in the fight to incorporate, a measure that 62% of 138 voters opposed in 2025. On MARA’s “Setting the Record Straight On Incorpora- tion” webpage, company representatives said Lakey rents out his home as an Airbnb that has received reviews specifically prais- ing the property for being “quiet.” They also posted an email from his daughter, in which she said her parents were overexaggerating their claims. Lakey, who said the attacks meant he was “on the right track,” told the Observer that he cannot sell the property because of its loss of value. “It’s disheartening, because you know, when we moved out here, it was everything that we ever wanted,” he said. “This was our forever home. We moved out here and said we’re never leaving again. We’ve got land to enjoy our grandkids out here. … It’s like, this is a place where I’m gonna be the greatest granddad ever, because this is where the kids are gonna want to come and hang out. And in- stead, it’s actually caused a rift in our family.” Power Plants Sitting near the MARA crypto mine is the Wolf Hollow II power plant. Owned by Con- stellation Energy, the 1,115-megawatt gas- and-steam turbine power plant supplies the crypto mine with electricity, which resi- dents say has added to the disruption. Cheryl Shadden is a grassroots organizer who lives across from the power plant and crypto mine. She is also a plaintiff in the law- suits against MARA Holdings and said the noise from the two facilities has caused her health problems. “My family doesn’t come over anymore,” Shadden said. “My friends that would come over here and we would train and ride horses together. My friends don’t come over to ride. None of us cook out or grill out out- side anymore. I haven’t ridden my horses in over two years. The dizziness and motion sickness is too much.” She is also concerned about the plant’s emissions and wastewater discharge. The owners of the facility, which is near Lake Granbury and Dinosaur Valley State Park, are seeking to discharge up to 1.24 million gallons of wastewater per day in the Brazos River, according to a recent Texas Commis- sion on Environmental Quality application. “It’s going right into the Brazos River, which means it’s going through Somerville County, down into Waco, Lake Whitney, on and on,” Shadden said. | UNFAIR PARK | Emma Ruby One massive Red Oak project is expected to result in eight DataBank data centers across a 300-acre campus. >> p6
