Pulse THE POLK COUNTY
FREE WEEKLY 1168 Hwy. 71 S Mena, AR 71953 479.243.9600
July 12, 2023
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Are data centers a benefit or burden
INSIDE:
By Ethan Nahté (Part 2 of 2)
Secretary Of State Mobile
Page 8
Elks 4th Of July Fun
Page 12
WMA Deer Hunt Permits
Page 23
In last week’s issue of The Polk County pulse, the article discussed the Polk County Quorum Court wanting to pass an emergency ordinance adopting certain rules and regulations concerning external noise attenuation of data centers and to prevent noise disturbance in Polk County and within its unincorporated limits. A description of what data centers, also known as crypto mines, are and the cause for concern was also discussed in part 1, last week. This week we begin with the Post Completion Noise Study after the levels have been measured and the findings reported to the county clerk within 30 days of completion of the study. The Data Center shall not begin operations until the completion of the post -construction noise study and submission to the county judge and county clerk as required above. In order for the Data Center to be in compliance, the noise study results must show that its operation is in compliance with this Ordinance. If the results show that the Data Center is not in compliance with this Ordinance, the Data Center will be
BIG!
SAVE
unable to commence operation until the required noise attenuation measures and noise limitations are met. Furthermore, the Data Center operator must conduct annual noise studies under the baseline and post-construction studies specifications in accordance with subsections (a) and (b) above. The Data Center operator must provide the results to the county judge and file with the county clerk within 30 days after the anniversary date of the first sound study report. Quorum Court’s decision Reading the ordinance took over
20 minutes, much longer than the discussion about the data centers. The vote to enact the ordinance was unanimous. Polk County Judge Brandon Ellison said, “I wanted to get something done before August 1st when state law takes effect. After that, the state law exempts us from doing any kind of noise mitigation or putting any restrictions at all on it, which again, is what the local governing body should be doing. We just kind of got ahead of it. I don’t think there’s going to be a data center coming to Polk
See CRYPTO MINE continued on page 2
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