Longview councilmembers debated for over an hour Thursday about the benefits of allowing more types of businesses in the city, even if the industries are known to use large amounts of energy and employ few people.
Longview City Council voted to allow city data centers and crypto mining facilities on a case-by-case basis, if approved by council. Applicants would still have to work with the Cowlitz Public Utility District and potentially other government entities before operating.
The council reviewed the change because the Longview Planning Commission had suggested crypto mining facilities be banned in the city, while data centers be OK’d on an individual basis, stating the latter could create more job opportunities than the prior.
Councilmembers Angie Wean — who said she had first-hand experience with crypto mining at a previous job — and MaryAlice Wallis voted against the proposal.
“I’m not in support of having cryptocurrency mining in our community,” Wean said, adding that she does not “think it goes to the quality of place and what we’re striving for in keeping open land available for manufacturing and other companies bringing actual jobs to our community.”
Empty lots
Data centers are giant warehouses filled with rows of computer servers continuously working to complete tasks like processing google searches and storing cloud photos. Data centers can support a range of such IT needs, while cryptocurrency mining facilities, located in similar computer-stacked warehouses, are more limited.
Councilmember Keith Young said that while he understands crypto mining uses much energy and minimal staff, the land involved in what was proposed to be a crypto mine at Mint Farm Industrial Park is still sitting dormant.
“There was a business that wanted to take up a very difficult parcel to populate,” Young said, adding that the applicant eventually moved elsewhere. “Meanwhile, that lot is empty and providing no tax revenue, no use whatsoever.”
Previously, Longview Community Development Director Nick Little told The Daily News that cryptocurrency mining facilities do not benefit the city by paying business and occupation taxes or permits, or raising land value.
Mayor Pro-tem Kalei LaFave said she was on the planning commission when the Mint Farm proposal came up.
“We did consider and had reps from PUD come in as well, and there was a big discussion about how many employees it was going to employ — it was only two — and how much water they were going to use,” LaFave said.
Separately, the council and city staff brought up a past data center proposal that estimated needing roughly 10 percent of the city’s municipal water capacity. Public Works Director Chris Collins said that under the proposal, the company would have employed “one full-time employee, maybe.”
Councilmember Erik Halvorson still saw the positives in the interested company.
“That would be a nice water bill,” he said. “That’d be good.”
‘A good compromise’
Wallis made the motion Thursday to codify data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities into separate industries.
As defined by the city, cryptocurrency is generated through “the act of solving a puzzle within a proof of work consensus model, proof of stake, and/or similar processes.”
Wallis, however, voted against the amendments allowing the two industries if an applicant gets a special-use permit from the council. She said that considering the high usage of utilities and few jobs the two industries provide, the idea lacks vision.
“I just feel like we keep getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, and I feel like we need to think about what we want to be when we grow up,” she said.
Young made one amendment to lift the ban on crypto mining. Mayor Spencer Boudreau and Councilmember Ruth Kendall voiced resistance to the proposal until Little, with community development, reminded the council that “we are not stuck in a world of duality.”
The mayor said he was open to special-use permits allowing the city to review proposals on a case-by-case basis, saying he believes the conditional use adequately “pumps the brakes” where necessary, while giving staff direction should proposals come in. Kendall made the motion for special-use permits, and Halvorson seconded.
“I think this is a good compromise,” Halvorson said, adding that he sees potential synergies such as possibly using the heat produced in crypto mining to grow crops in greenhouses.
‘Completely deafening’
Wean told the council about her firsthand experience with crypto mining.
She said she used to work for a technology company in the Eugene area where the owner’s “side hobby” was cryptocurrency. The company had a building “roughly a quarter the size” of council chambers, with the majority of the space dedicated to crypto mining, which she said generated pervasive noise at all hours.
“When you go into the room where they’re actually mining, the noise is completely deafening,” Wean said. “You can hear it from outside. … It’s muffled outside, but you can hear it.”
Wean went on to describe the obscure ways her workplace tried to cool the operation.
“They had like literal huge bathtub vats full of oil, and that wasn’t enough — and it was a small crypto experience he had,” Wean said. “And the energy use was insane.”
Wean said it “didn’t employ anybody,” describing only one employee who would sporadically “stop by and check on things.”
Boudreau voiced skepticism about the industry, before the compromise vote. Young tried to explain to the council in simple terms the “ledger” calculations that lead to cryptocurrency mines’ computing power needs.
“But it’s all out here and they use all this energy with no jobs just to have a computer check another computer’s work all day at a thousand degrees and however many decibels like a jet engine taking off,” Boudreau said.
“It’s definitely more than that,” Young said. “Basically, they’re proving that something happened beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can’t just disconnect one machine. It’s like a bank ledger, right? But like a bank ledger that’s seen around the world.”
“I’m pretty passionate about this stuff,” Young later said, adding that it doesn’t make sense to “limit business.”
