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Health and climate campaigners from 85 Organisations, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, urge Mississippi Governor to reject Drax permit appeal to increase pollution
In a display of international solidarity, 85 environmental, health, and community organisations - including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) - have today written to Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality to urge them to reject a permit appeal by the world's biggest tree-burning company, Drax, to increase pollution at its pellet mill in Gloster, Mississippi.
The letter comes ahead of a key public hearing on Tuesday 14th October, when the Mississippi Department for Environmental Quality (MDEQ) will review its decision from earlier this year to deny Drax’s request for a permit modification that would allow the company to significantly increase harmful air emissions and become a ‘major source of hazardous air pollutants’ at its wood pellet production facility in Gloster, located in Amite County.
When MDEQ denied the permit in April 2025, the decision was celebrated as a rare and hard-fought win for Gloster residents, who have long raised concerns about the facility’s impact on their health and quality of life. Community members have not only spoken out locally, but have also shared their experiences with MPs, and with Drax executives at the company's annual general meetings in the United Kingdom, where Drax is headquartered and from where it receives the vast majority of its subsidies.
Dr. Krystal Martin, executive director of Greater Greener Gloster said "We hope that MDEQ sees it's not just the people of Gloster that want to see the denial of Drax's permit upheld, it's communities all around the globe, including in the company's backyard. From the UK to Canada, Drax has done wrong by the communities it operates in, and those voices are louder and stronger than any PR the company aims to scrounge together. "
The open letter warns that granting Drax’s appeal would further jeopardize public health, intensify existing environmental injustices, and ignore the substantial body of evidence submitted in support of the Gloster community.
Merry Dickinson from the Stop Burning Trees Coalition said: "As someone living in Yorkshire, I’m deeply concerned that Drax - a company rooted in our region - is continuing to push for a permit that threatens communities far beyond our own. We stand in full solidarity with the people of Gloster who are fighting to protect their air, their health, and their environment. Drax’s biomass operations have no place in a just and sustainable future, and this appeal is yet another attempt to ignore the science, the public, and the people most affected by Drax’s deadly pollution."
Sally Clark from Biofuelwatch said: ‘It’s scandalous that the UK Government is giving over £2m per day in subsidies from our energy bills to fund Drax’s tree burning, climate-wrecking emissions and pollution of communities in Gloster and around the world.
‘There is nothing ‘green’, ‘renewable’ or ‘sustainable’ about Drax’s burning of trees from biodiverse forests and its continued disregard for the wellbeing of communities in Gloster and the Southern USA who are suffering severe health impacts from the wood pellet mills that supply Drax.
‘We’re proud to stand with the people of Gloster in calling on MDEQ to stand firm in saying no to Drax’s pollution plans. For the sake of our planet, we need decision makers in Mississippi, Westminster and across the globe to put people and the planet over the profits of big polluters like Drax by protecting our forests and our communities and by investing in real climate solutions like warm homes and renewable wind and solar power.’
Last year, Drax was fined $225,000 by MDEQ for air pollution violations at its pellet mill in Gloster. MDEQ also fined the company £2.5m in 2020 - one of the largest air pollution fines in the state’s history - for underestimating the level of hazardous air pollutants emitted since the pellet mill’s opening in 2016.
Among the concerns raised by the Gloster community are increased emissions of particulate matter and volatile organic compounds - pollutants linked to respiratory illness, heart disease, and other serious health conditions.
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Notes for editors:
Full letter and signatories: https://stopburningtrees.org/resource/open-letter-85-organisations-urge-governor-to-reject-drax-pollution-appeal
‘Gloster’s Drax Biomass Plant Faces New Permit Hearing Over Bid to Increase Emissions After April Denial’: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/glosters-drax-biomass-plant-faces-new-permit-hearing-over-bid-to-increase-emissions-after-april-denial/ (Mississippi Free Press, October 2025)
‘Wood pellet maker Drax denied pollution permit after small town Mississippi outcry’: https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/wood-pellet-maker-drax-denied-pollution-permit-after-small-town-mississippi-outcry/ (Mongabay, May 2025)
‘’Drax fined again over pollution: “I’m afraid to go outside,” say residents’ https://www.landclimate.org/gloster/ (Land and Climate Review, Sept 2024)
Drax has been accused of driving ‘environmental racism’ in the Southern USA after settling air pollution violation claims at its pellet mills in Louisiana.
Share image credit: Sophia Knight
Biofuelwatch
Biofuelwatch provides information and undertakes advocacy and campaigning in relation to the climate, environmental, human rights and public health impacts of large-scale industrial bioenergy. https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/
Stop Burning Trees Coalition
Stop Burning Trees is a grassroots coalition working to end all subsidies for large-scale woody biomass power stations and for a just transition. Founded in 2022, the coalition is a mix of environmental, social and worker justice groups. We are a broad based coalition, primarily located in Yorkshire, campaigning for an end to Drax and Lynemouth’s pollution, demanding a just transition for all workers and in active solidarity with frontline impacted communities abroad.
Website: https://stopburningtrees.org/
Social Media: @sbtcoalition
Dogwood Alliance
For over 25 years, Dogwood Alliance has fought threats to our forests and frontline communities. We promote forest protection as the best solution to climate change. We partner with communities to develop economic solutions that work with our forests.
Website: https://dogwoodalliance.org/
