Mississippi

Biomass Company Request to Scale Up in Gloster Denied

Published

1 year ago

April 15, 2025

Biomass Company Request to Scale Up in Gloster Denied

JACKSON, Miss.—A Mississippi permit board rejected global biomass manufacturer Drax’s bid to scale up production in a southwest Mississippi town, delivering a victory to residents who blame the company for worsening air quality in the area.

After nearly four hours of deliberations, Mississippi’s Environmental Quality Permit Board in Jackson denied Drax’s request to reclassify its Gloster, Miss., plant as a “major” source of hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs. The change would have raised the threshold for harmful emissions authorized at the facility, which has previously been cited for multiple air pollution violations.

Five board members voted against the new permit and one member abstained.

“Today, we’re denying these requests,” Permit Board Chairman Doug Mann said at the April 8 hearing. “We encourage (Drax) to continue to work with (Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality) staff to monitor those chemicals … and keep them out of the environment.”

Boasting a formidable presence in the southeastern United States, United Kingdom-based Drax produces wood pellets from local forests used to generate electricity—a process that releases dust particles and various hazardous substances like acrolein and methanol. The company has touted its product as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, though growing evidence suggests the production and burning of wood pellets yields more climate-warming emissions on a cumulative basis.

Since 2016, when Drax opened its facility on the fringes of downtown Gloster, residents have reported a range of respiratory illnesses and other health problems that they insist stem from the plant’s operations. Local organizers and advocates have held numerous events over the years to highlight conditions in the town, with some even traveling to the UK to meet with top Drax executives and demand reforms to their overseas business practices.

Residents used last week’s permit board meeting as another opportunity to underscore their predicament, claiming emissions from the Drax facility have made their town unsafe.

“I can’t walk from my bathroom to my bedroom because I can’t breathe,” Carmella Causey, a Gloster resident with a portable oxygen concentrator, said in a statement to the permit board. “It does not make sense that we are being killed in our community in broad daylight by an object that we can’t see.”

Local advocates, meanwhile, accused Drax of flouting environmental standards and exposing vulnerable Mississippians to dangerous pollutants for the sake of its bottom line.

“This industry has shown … that they don’t care about the law,” Katherine Egland, co-founder of the local environmental justice group EEECHO, said during the meeting. “They’re nothing but a bunch of well-subsidized corporate assassins who readily put profit over people.”

Drax representatives at the meeting said they simply want to bring production in line with what their current operating permit allows. This would require being reclassified as a major HAP source in Mississippi, one executive explained.

“With the increased (emissions) limits, we could increase production, but not above whatever the permit limits,” Brad Mayhew, vice president of Drax’s southern operations, told the permit board on April 8.

The Mississippi Free Press reached out to Drax for comment after the meeting, but did not hear back by press time.

Since 2016, Mississippi regulatory agencies have fined Drax three times for emissions-related violations, including a $2.5 million fine in 2020 that represents one of the largest Clean Air Act penalties in state history. A 2024 investigation from the Land and Climate Review also found that its U.S. facilities have broken environmental regulations more than 11,000 times since 2014.

Despite this track record and the outcome of last week’s hearing, the permit board indicated that it might revisit Drax’s request down the road if the plant can keep emissions in check.

“This is a rapidly developing industry,” Mann said following the vote. “Hopefully, in the near future, there will be ways to mitigate all of these HAPs and other bad things that the process generates.”

Speaking with the Mississippi Free Press on April 10, Egland said advocates will use the board’s decision to continue raising awareness about Drax and pressure lawmakers to take a stand against the company. She bristled at the idea that Drax should be granted more leeway with emissions just because it belongs to an “emerging industry.”

“We don’t think that our Mississippi residents should be pawns in an experimental (process),” Egland concluded. “We should not be suffering because they are on a learning curve.”

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Mississippi

Valincius homer lifts Bulldogs past Memphis

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4 hours ago

April 22, 2026

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Valincius homer lifts Bulldogs past Memphis

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Mississippi

Mississippi lawmakers face pressure to counter looming federal cuts to health care after punting this session

Published

17 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

Mississippi lawmakers face pressure to counter looming federal cuts to health care after punting this session

State lawmakers face a daunting task to blunt the effects of looming federal cuts that threaten to erode health care affordability and access in the years ahead, especially after they failed to address some of the most pressing issues during Mississippi’s 2026 legislative session, experts warn.

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Mississippi

Wicker: Mississippi powered Artemis II – Picayune Item

Published

1 day ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

Wicker: Mississippi powered Artemis II

Published 4:00 pm Monday, April 20, 2026

For nine days this month, space travel captivated the world. Families gathered around their screens as four astronauts strapped into the Integrity spacecraft docked at the Kennedy Space Center. As the launch countdown ended, four Mississippi-tested RS-45 engines ignited, and the ground shook. Seven seconds later, the Integrity had liftoff. For six intense minutes, the RS-45 engines rocketed the crew into high Earth orbit, sending them on their historic lunar flyby mission.

Mississippi should take a bow. The four RS-45 engines were tested at our very own Stennis Space Center, where Mississippians have been ensuring the quality of rocket engines since the Apollo program. For eight years, engineers, safety managers, and logistics specialists from the state have tested the engines that powered the Integrity and will power future Artemis launches. Their work paid off, and the launch was a marvel of engineering. NASA leadership made special mention of the rocket engine burn, calling it “flawless.”

One Mississippian in particular helped make the mission a success. Hernando native Matthew Ramsey handled a great deal of responsibility as the mission manager for Artemis II. The Mississippi State University graduate helped set the focus for the mission and equip the astronauts and staff for the job. Matthew also served as the deputy of the Mission Management Team, the group of NASA staff that comes together just days before a launch. The team assumes the risks of the mission ahead, and they make tough calls during flight if challenges arise.

As the Artemis II journey progressed, the world could not stop watching. Our social media feeds were full of photos and videos beamed down from the heavens. They captured humorous situations, such as the astronauts adjusting to life without gravity or testing their plumbing skills.

We also witnessed moments of majesty. On the fifth day, the Integrity began using the Moon’s gravity to slingshot our astronauts back home. That trajectory led the crew around the Moon, farther from Earth than any humans have ever gone. As the explorers looked upon outer space, they captured stunning images. Among the most remarkable is Earthset, in which Commander Reid Wiseman photographed Earth as it appeared to fall below the horizon of the moon.

When their spacecraft returned to Earth’s atmosphere, the crew was traveling nearly 35 times faster than the speed of sound. Ten minutes later, a series of parachutes began opening. Eventually, the spacecraft’s speed fell to 20 miles per hour, and the crew splashed down into the Pacific Ocean.

Mississippi was once again there to assist. The astronauts were greeted by the USS John P. Murtha, a U.S. military vessel built in the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula. The ship’s amphibious design was suited to welcome the space travelers home—equipped with a helicopter pad, medical facilities, and the communications system needed to locate and recover the astronauts safely. Crucially, the USS Murtha was built with a well deck, a sea-based garage that stored the Integrity on the journey to shore.

Artemis II was a resounding success, paving the way for planned future flights. When the Artemis program returns humans to the moon, Mississippi will be there every step of the way.

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