Provided photo Chloe Kannon, director of EUP (Eastern Upper Peninsula) Solidarity in Sault Saint Marie, spoke at a community meeting in Houghton on Wednesday, about the problems being caused by a cryptocurrency data mining center in Dafter Township near Sault Saint Marie.

HOUGHTON — Chloe Kannon, director of EUP (Eastern UP) Solidarity, spoke at a public meeting Wednesday at the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Houghton. The presentation was sponsored by a local grassroots group called AWAVE (Advocates for those Without A Voice Everywhere). Hancock City Council Member Lisa McKenzie was among those who attended the meeting.

Kannon warned that local government needs to create ordinances to prevent or regulate the development of data mining centers here because of their potential to warm Lake Superior, create noise pollution and raise the cost of electricity.

AI and cryptocurrency companies have their eyes on Lake Superior, she said. They need water, land and power to develop their large data mining centers, and she warned that they can exploit the UP, which has plenty of those resources.

Data mining requires water to cool the operation, she explained. The water is drained back into the ground, where it gets into the aquifer and then to the lake, potentially warming it. Data mining operations also use large amounts of electricity which could raise the price of power. And they create noise.

Kannon shared an example: a relatively small installation of cryptocurrency servers located across from Lake Superior Academy, a K-5 Montessori school in Dafter Township, Michigan, near Sault Saint Marie. The servers generate a constant noise that the school describes as “like jack hammers 24/7.” The school is suing Odessa Partners, the Florida owners of those servers.

EUP Solidarity is a chapter of Indivisible, a non-profit organization with thousands of members and chapters nationwide, that was founded in reaction to Donald Trump’s election as president and is “working to protect our freedoms.”

EUP Solidarity works to protect the health, safety and environment of the Eastern U.P. Their Facebook page states: “We stand in solidarity with the working people of the UP, our neighbors, youth, and Tribes to safeguard our land and water, promote equity and justice, and ensure fair access to resources for all.”

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