The Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board is revisiting its decision earlier this year to keep biomass manufacturer Drax from scaling up production in Gloster, Mississippi, sparking concerns from residents who fear the facility could be imperiling their health.
In a public meeting set for Tuesday, Oct. 14, the permit board will reassess whether to allow Drax to reclassify its Gloster plant as a “major” source of hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs. The new permits would raise the threshold for toxic emissions authorized at the facility, which residents have long blamed for worsening air quality and widespread health problems in the Amite County town of about 900 people. About 75% of residents are Black.
The permit board denied Drax’s initial reclassification request in April, calling on the Gloster facility to continue working with state regulators to curtail harmful emissions. The company has since filed an appeal, paving the way for next week’s evidentiary hearing in Jackson.
During a virtual press conference on Oct. 7, legal experts, environmental advocates and community organizers urged the permit board to uphold its April ruling, warning that a reversal would give Drax more leeway to release dangerous pollutants into Gloster.
“Drax must be held accountable,” Allison Brouk, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, told reporters at the press conference. “The residents of Gloster will not accept more pollution, more broken promises or more health risks in exchange for corporate convenience.”
United Kingdom-based Drax makes compressed wood pellets from trees used to generate electricity—a process that releases dust particles and hazardous compounds like acrolein and methanol. In the last decade, European nations have embraced this energy source as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, and wood pellet production has surged across the United States (particularly in the South) to meet the higher demand overseas.
Since 2016, when Drax opened its manufacturing plant in Gloster, the facility has repeatedly violated its operating permits and paid multiple fines over excess emissions. That includes a $2.5 million fine in 2021 that represents one of the largest Clean Air Act penalties in Mississippi history.
In a statement to the Mississippi Free Press, Drax expressed confidence that the new permit applications presented to MDEQ “provided the foundation for more stringent permits that will provide additional monitoring and controls” at its Gloster facility.
“The safety of our people and the communities in which we operate is our priority, and we take our environmental responsibilities very seriously,” Drax spokesperson Michelli Martin said in an Oct. 9 email. “MDEQ staff confirmed to the permit board that Drax is currently in compliance and will be able to maintain compliance with the proposed permit applications by all regulatory and technical requirements of MDEQ permits.”
Martin added that failing to approve the new permit for the Gloster plant would have “significant” economic consequences for the town, Amite County and Mississippi as a whole.
Drax has previously argued that its current permits stifle its production output in Gloster, and that allowing it to reclassify as a major HAP source would enable it to ramp up production without exceeding the new permit’s emissions limits. The biomass giant is likely to reiterate this position at Tuesday’s hearing, where company and community spokespeople will each present evidence to the permit board and question the other side’s designated representatives, Brouk explained.
“Each party will have the opportunity to cross-examine the other’s witnesses, (and) then the permanent board will make its decision on whether or not to grant the proposed permits,” she told reporters on Oct. 7.
The permit board could deliver a verdict at the hearing or elect to issue its decision as “written findings” at a later date, Brouk said. Should the board side with Drax, all subsequent appeals and administrative proceedings would take place at the state chancery court.
Ahead of Tuesday’s public hearing, environmental justice and advocacy groups will hold a rally in Jackson in support of the Gloster community. The event will include residents from neighboring states who are struggling with industrial pollution from other wood pellet facilities, said Kadin Love with Dogwood Alliance, one of the rally’s organizers.
“We’ll be bringing in communities from North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and others to … explain what they’re going through and to support another community being affected by biomass pollution,” he said.
Tuesday’s rally and public hearing will also offer an opportunity for Gloster residents to share their predicament directly with state regulators. For years, local leaders have called for tighter pollution controls and greater scrutiny into Drax’s operations—an effort they say has yielded few concrete results.
“We want MDEQ to uphold its mission and safeguard and protect our health,” Krystal Martin, a Gloster native and founder of the community group Greater Greener Gloster, told reporters on the virtual press call. “We are Mississippians, and we deserve clean air and real protection from pollution.”
Mississippi’s Environmental Quality Permit Board meeting will take place Oct. 14 at 9 a.m. at 515 E. Amite St., Jackson, MS 39201. The rally will take place directly across the street at 8 a.m.