A bitcoin-mining data center has been proposed feet from homes in southeast Morgan County. Here’s what’s happening — and why the county, as the rules stand today, can’t stop it.
A company called VoltCore has proposed building a bitcoin-mining data center at 369 Union Road in southeast Morgan County, close to the intersection of State Routes 36 and 67, just outside Somerville. The plan would place a roughly 10-acre data center on a 15-acre lot.
To bring power to the site, Joe Wheeler Electric would need to run large transmission lines — reported to be around 75 feet tall — across the property of four nearby homeowners. Each of those four families has refused to grant the easements. As local outlets including WAFF 48 and The Decatur Daily have reported, the company offered each household a package that included a cash payment, a year of free internet service, a natural gas line, and restoration of disturbed land. So far, no one has accepted.
VoltCore representatives have told residents the project would create roughly 20 to 30 jobs and have said it would not add noise, raise power bills, or draw on local water. Neighbors have responded that the assurances are easy to make and hard to hold anyone to — and that the more questions they ask, the less reassured they feel. Many say they moved to this part of Morgan County precisely for the quiet, rural character that a 24/7 industrial facility would change.
The core problem: Morgan County has no zoning rules that would let it block a facility like this in a residential, unincorporated area. As one resident put it to reporters, there are more rules for putting up a chicken house than for dropping in a data center.
This isn’t about shutting the door on technology or investment. It’s about basic fairness for the people who already live here: