In Oak Valley, a sleepy village in rural Navarro County, Texas, there’s little or no of something. A potholed highway runs by way of its two sq. miles of sun-beaten grassland, previous a modest prefab group heart and a “poor excuse for a park,” because the native mayor describes it.
Solely around 400 people dwell in Oak Valley. However regardless of its diminutive measurement and few sources, the Texas hamlet is getting ready to fold into its borders, by way of uncommon means, an industrial-scale bitcoin mine—a transfer that would improve its annual finances by as a lot as fortyfold.
4 miles away from Oak Valley on a 265-acre parcel of land, public crypto mining agency Riot Platforms is busily developing what is about to turn out to be the world’s largest bitcoin mining facility, in response to the corporate. As soon as full, it is going to consume up to 1 gigawatt of energy, sufficient to energy tons of of hundreds of properties.
The Riot facility presently sits on a patch of unincorporated land, within the jurisdiction of the Navarro County authorities. However the firm is within the technique of negotiating a deal, as proven by a sequence of electronic mail communications seen by WIRED, by way of which the plot might be annexed by Oak Valley.
The annexation plan, which has but to be finalized, will make doable much-needed improvements to Oak Valley roads and different public infrastructure. Nor will it price Riot something, as a result of the vitality firm serving the world will foot the invoice. For Riot, it’s a public relations gambit, meant to curry favor with native residents and county officers standing in the way in which of a profitable low cost on its property taxes. Thousands and thousands of {dollars} doubtlessly rides on its potential to garner native assist in Navarro County earlier than a remaining determination on its abatement software is reached.
Riot declined to touch upon the prospect of an annexation by Oak Valley. Brian Morgenstern, head of public coverage at Riot, says solely that “an annexation needs to be good for all sides.” “We need to be certain we’re being good neighbors and bringing optimistic impacts to the group,” he says.
To fund public works, a township like Oak Valley has to rely predominantly on cash collected from the electrical energy supplier in alternate for the usage of native rights-of-way. These so-called franchise charges are calculated as a share of residents’ vitality payments. In regular circumstances, Oak Valley collects roughly $9,000 in franchise charges per yr, which makes up 75 p.c of a meager complete finances that’s inadequate to cowl easy infrastructure enhancements.
“Oak Valley has no cash,” says David Brewer, a commissioner within the Navarro County Commissioner’s Courtroom, the governing physique of the district. “Our county finances is extraordinarily tight, so we are able to’t assist a few of the areas we need to.”
Nevertheless, if Oak Valley succeeds in annexing the energy-hungry Riot facility, says Brewer, it is going to hoover up franchise charges “to the tune of a quarter- to half-a-million {dollars} a yr” as soon as the 1-gigawatt plant is full.
Main the push for the annexation is Max Taylor, the mayor of Oak Valley, who declined to be interviewed for this story. After a change of legislation in 2019, municipalities in Texas can now not annex a parcel of land by pressure, so they need to search permission from the landowner. However Taylor seems to have had little bother convincing Riot: “This challenge has my full assist,” wrote David Schatz, senior vice chairman of operations at Riot, in an electronic mail to Taylor on June 25.
