Arkansas County fights crypto-mine lawsuit, urges special session and issues rallying cry

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — The battle between Arkansas County and a new crypto-mine in its borders is raging, as a legal showdown in federal court looms and locals rally other counties to their cause.

Jones Digital, the owner of the crypto-mine near DeWitt, has filed a lawsuit and restraining order against the county after its quorum court made a noise ordinance stricter with an amendment in response to community outcry.

When it was announced in July that a crypto-mine would be setting up just outside DeWitt’s city limits, locals widely opposed it, their concerns ranging from energy usage and potential environmental damage to the possibility of a national security threat posed by the suspected foreign ownership of the crypto-mine.

“This is not a mom-and-pop business. This is not an industry coming in. All it is, is 3,000 computers that’s going to suck our resources, that’s going to damage our community,” said Jackie Johnson, a member of the Committee to Protect Arkansas County, also known as Say No to Crypto in ARCO.

“For someone that doesn’t even live inside the United States to come suck our resources to make profits on the hardworking men and women of this county and this state…it’s not going to fly. It’s time to nip this and get rid of it before we have it all over our state,” Johnson said.

“These operations started coming into the county—the crypto-mining—nobody knew a whole lot about them, didn’t know what all might be entailed in their operations. And we know that some of the permits that they should have got, they didn’t, and so it just kind of looks suspicious,” said Arkansas County Judge Thomas E. Best.

Jones Digital filed its lawsuit against Arkansas County on November 1, in response to the stricter noise regulations the quorum court added to a pre-existing ordinance with an amendment passed in October.

“They wanted to lower the sound more, and they’re legally allowed to do that. And Jones Digital said ‘no, it would put an undue burden on [them] to have to do that.” But the county did it for the citizens of the county,” Johnson said.

Tuesday, the Arkansas County Quorum Court passed a resolution to request that the governor call a special session to address the impact of Act 851, a law passed at the last legislative session that limits local government’s ability to regulate crypto-mines.

The quorum court also proclaimed all other Arkansas counties to join it in that resolution.

“We will be sending a certified copy to all the counties and also letters of recommendation to the governor,” Best said.

Last Thursday, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality conducted an inspection of the crypto-mine, accompanied by an Arkansas lawmaker who requested they visit the site.

“Our Representative Jeremiah Moore had contacted several officials with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality about possible violations,” said Tami Hornbeck, chair of the Committee to Protect Arkansas County.

Moore, (R) District 61, told Channel 7 that the site was found to be out of compliance with existing regulations and emphasized that the full letter of the law needs to be enforced with maximum penalties. Moore said that an official ADEQ report will be published this week.

The following is Moore’s full statement to Channel 7:

“Per my request that ADEQ do a site visit to the crypto mine, five ADEQ employees met with me at the facility last Thursday morning. The site was found to be out of compliance with existing regulation and I emphasized that the full letter of the law needs to be enforced with maximum penalties. While I do not have executive authority over this agency, I have been assured that an official report will be published this week, and I hope that it will do the public a great justice. Crypto-mines produce electronic currencies that are all too often bought and used by drug cartels, human traffickers, and terrorist organizations such as Hamas. We must put in every effort to stop tacitly aiding and abetting these enterprises of evil across the globe,” Moore said.

The legal battle goes to Arkansas’ Eastern District Federal Court this Thursday in Little Rock, where a hearing will be held concerning Jones Digital’s motion for a restraining order against Arkansas County.