Tag Archives: public health

Mongabay: Wood pellet maker Drax denied pollution permit after small town Mississippi outcry

Krystal Martin (center) has for months lobbied local and state officials about what she and her neighbors believe are health hazards posed by pollution from one of the largest wood-pellet mills in the world, owned by Drax and located near the center of Gloster, Mississippi. She organized neighbors on April 8 to fill a hearing room in the capital of Jackson to argue against a permit for Drax to legally emit more toxic pollution during its manufacturing process. Image courtesy of Krystal Martin.

It is a rare thing when a small, poor Black community stands up successfully to a corporate giant like Drax, one of the world’s largest makers of wood pellets for industrial-scale burning for energy. But that’s what happened in Mississippi in April 2025, as this story of mine illustrates.

I learned about this meeting in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, while I was in Washington in late March to speaks at a forum on wood pellets for energy sponsored by the Rachel Carson Council. Krystal Martin discussed the organizing efforts her group, in conjunction with several environmental groups, were pursuing to keep Drax from increasing the amount of toxic emissions it was already putting into the air over Gloster, Miss., where Drax has its largest facility. The community argument prevailed over the business argument put forth by Drax. That just doesn’t happen very often, especially in environmental justice communities like Gloster.

This is one of those examples where a public health and quality of life argument from a local community may just have more impact in pushing back against the growth of the wood pellet industry than the years of scientific arguments that have largely failed to persuade policymakers in the European Union and United Kingdom to shift away from their reliance of forest biomass for energy as the primary way to phase out coal.

Mongabay: Study — Burning wood pellets for energy endangers local communities’ health

This wood pellet manufacturing plant in Ahoskie, North Carolina was Enviva’s first in the state, opening in 2011. Wood feedstock – pine and hardwood – arrives at the plant already chipped from native forests within a 50-mile radius of the plant. The chips are dried and then pressed into pellets. According to a new study in Renewable Energy, wood pellet production emits more than 55 hazardous air pollutants, along with tons of volatile organic compounds and particulate matter. Many of the pollutants can be harmful to human health. Image by Justin Catanoso.

The interesting thing about the facts that are the heart of this story of mine: it all sounds so familiar. Burning forest biomass causes enormous amount of emissions and hazardous pollutants from both the manufacturing process and the burning-for-energy process? Don’t we know this already?

Well, yes and no. Forest and public health advocates have been decrying for as long as I’ve been covering this issue the harmful impacts from every process that is the wood pellet industry — from clearcutting native forests that reduce carbon sinks and degrade biodiversity, to emissions from drying wood before its pressed into pellets, to pollution from the transportation sector to move pellets from one place to another, and finally, enormous emissions from burning these pellets instead of coal.

Because so much is assumed — and obvious (like the obvious health hazards of smoking cigarettes for years) — we assume, too, that there are rigorous scientific studies that prove what so many assume. This may be true in Europe, but it has not been true in the United States — until the 2023 publication of the study that is focus of my story.

This research is enormously important given the growth of the wood pellet industry and the growing interest across the United States to start burning wood for energy and claim — erroneously — that it’s a legitimate climate solution. There is no legitimate science that supports that industry claim. I am glad Mongabay continues to cover this issue closely. Sadly, this important study was not covered by any other news media.