Birds fly past a pile of wood used to make pellets during a tour of a Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. Wood pellet production skyrocketed across the U.S. South to feed the European Union’s push this past decade for renewable energy to replace fossil fuels like coal. Shelia Mae Dobbins holds part of her oxygen tube inside her home in Gloster, Miss., Wednesday, May 29, 2024.
“Something is going on. And it’s all around the plant,” said the 59-year-old widow who raised two children here. “Nobody asked us could they bring that plant there.” The market brought hope for revitalization to small, disadvantaged communities. But interviews with residents of towns with large Black populations, from Gaston,Gloster has become the poster child for such tensions. In 2020, Mississippi’s environmental agency fined Drax $2.5 million for violating air emissions limits. Gloster is exposed to more particulate matter than much of the U.S.
But critics aren’t swayed by showings of corporate goodwill they say don’t account for poor air. Krystal Martin, of the Greater Greener Gloster Project, returned to her hometown after her 75-year-old mother was diagnosed with lung and heart problems. “We need every single technology we can get our hands on to mitigate climate change,” Woodworth said. “Bioenergy is a part of that.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Rita Frost, who fought plants in the South, said the deal will endanger California’s low-income Latino communities much like she says the industry threatened Black southern towns.But a key federal decision could draw more companies into pellet combustion — not just production.