Merkle Standard has six employees but claims to be one of largest employers in Pend Oreille County

Merkle Standard has repeatedly claimed that they are one of the largest employers in the county. They most recently repeated this claim at a public town hall meeting with Ms. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers recently held at the Camas Center near Usk, WA. In the last six months they have made this claim to the State Department of Commerce, to the Pend Oreille County hearing examiner, and to the Clark County PUD and perhaps to others.

The problem with this claim is that Merkle Standard only had six employees last month- a number that is a couple of orders of magnitude away from being ranked among the county's largest employers. 

In a recent Evergreen Grant application to the State Department of Commerce asking for hundreds of thousands of tax-payer dollars to upgrade the electrical wiring at their Bitcoin mining facility at the former PNC paper mill in Usk (work they alleged would help them begin to produce paper), Merkle Standard certified in their application to the state that they in fact only had six employees.

While it seems to be standard practice for crypto miners to promise dozens or even hundreds of new jobs (which they fail to deliver) to the communities they plan to exploit, continuing to repeat the demonstrably false claim that they are one of the largest employers in the County surely sets a new "Merkle" standard for deceptive advertising.