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At the Lake Superior Academy, south of Sault Ste. Marie, superintendent Susie Schlehuber calls the school's outdoor space a classroom.
"It's not a recess place, it's where we do learning every day," she said.
The preschool-K-5 students at this charter school typically spend two hours a day outside, where they play, read, journal, garden and observe nature.
But since March, Schlehuber said the whirring of giant computers across the street has drowned out the birds the kids are used to hearing.
The computers are part of a bitcoin mining farm, and they're housed in six metal storage units that look like shipping containers.
"The students often, daily, say 'when is this going to stop?'" Schlehuber said. "Our special needs students, some, will come out and cover their ears."
The noise comes from cooling fans that keep the massive computers from overheating, as they work around the clock, solving complex, random puzzles to earn crypto-currency.
Schlehuber said the sound is constant and hovers around 70 to 75 decibels, which falls somewhere between a running washing machine and a blender.
"When we come out, you always hear the humming and the noise," she said.
Residents are voicing their concerns about the long-term health effects of exposure to noise and air pollution associated with bitcoin mining.
They also say they're concerned about the lack of transparency from the people behind the bitcoin facility, as it's not immediately clear who's running it.
Mysterious presence
Schlehuber said the two men who maintain the site have been friendly and appeared at a recent township meeting, but she said they have not been forthcoming about who they work for.
"The longer we learn about them, the less we know, the more questions we have," she said. "So no, we haven't figured out or learned more about the organization. We've just learned how much we don't know."
Michael Carbonara with Odessa LLC is listed as the site's property owner on the building's permit application. He is also identified as the property owner, according to the Chippewa County Register of Deeds.
Carbonara is the CEO of a financial tech company, Ibanera. WCMU confirmed that the address on Ibanera's business filings in Boca Raton, Florida lined up with the address on the Dafter permit application.
WCMU made multiple attempts to reach him, his company and other workers at Ibanera, but never heard back.
In an October video interview posted by Tech or Leave It, Carbonara, a New Yorker, who now lives in Miami, describes himself as an entrepreneur.
"(Entrepreneurship) really takes hands-on experience, and it's about dealing with people," he said in the interview. "So, in my late 20s, I started setting up businesses. No longer an employee, but taking risks, taking chances and being creative."
A bank in the Bahamas recently filed a lawsuit against Carbonara and his company, accusing them of stealing more than $20 million dollars by "wrongfully withholding" funds, according to reporting from Eye Witness News.
But it's unclear how involved Carbonara is at the bitcoin facility in Dafter Township.
He signed the permit application in October of last year, paid the $219.25 fee and checked a box for "storage, warehouse, etc." as the use for the building. He wrote in the application that the site would "host 6 containerized data centers consisting of computer systems managing data."
Zoning limits
Dafter Township supervisor Bob Brown said the site is appropriately categorized as a storage facility — and that there are no rules within the zoning ordinance preventing bitcoin mining.
"What if it was trailers full of balloons? Or what if it was trailers full of fish tanks that are running electricity?" he said. "You know the code doesn't say it can't be storage for X."
The uproar around the bitcoin facility has prompted the township to update its ordinance and consider more specific rules for data centers. Brown said he intends to propose hiring a firm that can provide expertise on how to regulate emerging technology like data centers.
Brown said the bitcoin farm has also highlighted the absence of a noise ordinance in the township. But if a noise ordinance is implemented, he said it's unlikely it would apply to the existing facility.
"But you learn from it, right?" Brown said. "What if someone wants to come in and put in a thousand of these? If we don't have something in place, we're going to have the same issue."
Brown said he hopes the current dispute between the school and the bitcoin farm can be still solved on neighborly terms. The site operators are planning to present some options to make the farm less noisy this August.
Data center growth
The site by the academy is not the only bitcoin farm in the area. Another one — also in Dafter Township — is not fully operational yet.
A video posted seven months ago by the channel Bitcoin Mining World, advertises the site for sale, but the video also promotes the Soo as an optimal place for cryptocurrency mining.
"The advantage of a small town is that there are local operators and contractors to get projects done quickly and reliably, making this project perfect for remote investors," the video narrator says.
The Cloverland Electric Cooperative, which is the electricity supplier in the area, put out a statement in mid-June, saying that the company "does not own or operate these facilities."
"Cloverland cannot choose whether to serve a business based on the nature of the business and cannot stop service even if the operation is offensive, noisy, smells bad or is otherwise disagreeable for other members," the statement read.
Data centers, including those for cryptocurrency mining like bitcoin and AI, are projected to grow substantially. One recent report estimates that data center capacity may increase by 46% just in the next two years and nearly triple by 2030.
Tech companies are eyeing rural areas for development — citing lower taxes, energy and land costs — but those communities may not know what's coming.
"You don't know what you don't know until you know it," Brown said.
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