The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has issued another fine to the United Kingdom-based company Drax for 2022 air emissions violations at its wood pellet plant in Gloster.
The company first announced the penalty on Tuesday. MDEQ’s announcement came a day later.
Drax’s Gloster facility, Amite BioEnergy, released 50% more than its permitted limit of a group of chemicals known as Hazardous Air Pollutants, or HAPs, in 2022. The plant also released 84% more, or almost double, than its permitted limit of methanol, a type of HAP, that same year.
MDEQ fined the facility $225,000, making it the third time the state has fined Drax since its plant opened in 2016. In 2020, MDEQ fined Drax $2.5 million, one of the largest Clean Air Act penalties in state history, for releasing over three times the legal limit for Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, since the plant opened. Drax didn’t come into compliance until 2021, almost five years later.
MDEQ also fined Drax $110,000 in 2019 for recordkeeping and monitoring violations, as well as for excessive use of a fire pump engine.
The plant, one of the largest employers in the area, processes wood into pellets that Drax then sends back to the United Kingdom. Wood pellet companies, including Drax and Enviva, send pellets made in Mississippi and other Southern states back to Europe and Asia, where countries use the biomass as a way of meeting their clean energy goals. However, a large group of scientists and conservationists from around the world have criticized the practice, arguing that using wood pellets for fuel actually increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
Extended exposure of large amounts of HAPs can increase the chances of health effects such as cancer, damage to the immune system, neurological, reproductive, developmental, and respiratory issues among other symptoms, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Since learning of the $2.5 million fine in 2020, a group of Gloster residents have alleged that people living near Amite BioEnergy have experienced health issues, including respiratory symptoms, caused by the plant’s emissions.
This week’s fine requires Drax to pay $150,000 directly to MDEQ, and use the remaining $75,000 to build a dust suppression screen. In addition to their concerns around air and noise pollution, residents living near the plant have said that dust from the facility often blows onto their property. Drax will spend an additional $75,000 to build the screen, the company said. MDEQ’s order requires the screen to be built within the next 300 days.
Mississippi Today released a story in April exploring the arrival of the wood pellet industry in the state, how the industry took advantage of the economic voids in rural communities, and the environmental and health concerns that followed.
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