Roar of fans at cryptocurrency 'mine' makes Blue Ridge rumble; one of 12 a Calif. firm has in Southern Appalachia

The cryptocurrency "mine" is a few miles outside Murphy, N.C. (Screenshot from CNN)

The undending roar of fans cooling computer servers at a cryptocurrency "mine" in the Blue Ridge Mountains has "upended local politics" in Cherokee County, North Carolina, CNN reports, but officials there have said there is little they can do about it.

"The mine in Murphy is just one of a dozen in Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina owned by a San Francisco-based company called PrimeBlock, which recently announced $300 million in equity financing and plans to scale up and go public," CNN's Bill Weir reports.

Mine neighbor Mike Lugiewicz told Weir, “There’s a racetrack three miles out right here,” pointing toward it and away from the nearby crypto mine. “You can hear the cars running. It’s cool!” Neighbor Judy Stines interjected, “But at least they stop. And you can go to bed!

Lugiewicz takes sound readings at his home. More 30 percent have exceeded 60 decibels, Weir reports: "Estimates from the National Park Service show that expected environmental sound levels in the area should be around 41 decibels. Kurt Fristrup, a former Park Service scientist who studied noise impacts on rural environments, compared the noise near Lugiewicz’s home to living close to a very busy road without normal pulses in traffic."

Residents have complained about the noise at meetings of the Cherokee County Commission, and the commission's lack of action helped lead to the defeat of some members, CNN reports, but the county "still has not found a legal 'magic wand' to make noise from unenclosed crypto mines go away," the Cherokee Scout reports. However, Commissioners in Clay County, which borders Cherokee on the east, voted in August to ban crypto mines, the Scout reports. The Cherokee County Commission did pass a resolution asking state and federal officials to ban crypto mining in the U.S., as China has. The county "has had a noise ordinance on the books since 1999, but locals say it is unevenly enforced and does not specify a decibel threshold," The Washington Post reported in August.