- The city of El Reno, Oklahoma, has condemned a Bitcoin mining site after roughly 3.8 million gallons of water leaked, affecting schools, businesses, and even the county courthouse
- The leak happened despite a stop-work order issued by the city in 2023, which it never followed up on or attempted to enforce
- The water came from an unpermitted private fire hydrant and suppression line, even as the mining facility remained, as per filings by the operator, air-cooled for its operations
A city of roughly 20,000 people in central Oklahoma spent two days hunting for water that was pouring into the ground at an alarming rate.
When crews finally traced it, the source was a fire hydrant nobody at City Hall knew existed, on the grounds of a Bitcoin mining site that had been ordered to stop building three years earlier but had never followed through.
The city of El Reno has now condemned the property, issued a ten-day abatement notice, and scheduled an administrative hearing for September 14 2026.
Flaws in the handling of its own orders
City officials say the leak came from a private fire hydrant and the suppression line feeding it, not from cooling equipment. KFOR reported that Athlon had told El Reno its hardware was air-cooled and would not need water for cooling, and that the line in question was supposed to serve fire protection only.
Interim City Manager Ken Brown told reporters roughly 3.8 million gallons were lost, revising up an earlier estimate of about three million. The property is owned by Athlon BT, described in Canadian County assessor records as a company running data centers for AI storage and Bitcoin mining, and its structures are logged as mobile mining containers.
The company identifies itself as "Athlon Blockchain Technology Corporation" on its website, which is currently undergoing "scheduled maintenance" and is under fire for what is being seen as an unauthorized or unplanned water hydrant.
Ironically, the company has, at least on its website before it went dark recently, advertised "hydro-cooled solutions" in addition to its air-cooled offerings, which should raise a few eyebrows about its current claim, even as the brunt of the focus lies on the city's failure to shut down the endeavor.
The offending hydrant was installed without notifying the city, does not appear on municipal records, and was reportedly found concealed under a large pile of brush.
Brown said the city issued a stop-work order in June 2023 citing electrical, construction, and fire safety violations, along with expired building and electrical permits; gave Athlon until December 2023 to comply; and then never followed up. The company consequently continued building and, the city believes, began operating without a certificate of occupancy.
It doesn't help matters that there is little, if any, information about the operator beyond its website, which is currently under maintenance. KFOR's Spencer Humphrey traced the company to founder and CEO Tony Jiang Shi, a Stanford graduate based in Palo Alto who has registered several other LLCs used mostly for real estate.
The city has, for its part, claimed that residents will not pay for any of this and that it will bill the property owner for water, overtime, and equipment used to locate and repair the leak.
Finding the owner might be easier said than done, however; county records list Athlon's address as an El Reno house a couple of miles from the site, which the station found apparently abandoned, with packages piled on the porch addressed to Shi. Calls and emails from multiple outlets have gone unanswered, and Athlon has issued no statement since the situation started.
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