The Wood Pellet Paradox

BROKEN GROUND: BIOMASS EPISODE

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Heather Hillaker: Why isn’t this being talked about more? 

Dr. Treva Gear: I just knew immediately:  that’s not good.

Earl Claiborne:  They wouldn’t understand what we go through to try to go to sleep.  

Belinda Joyner: We’re paying taxes, but we’re not being represented. So, I mean, yeah, we’re paying them to kill us.   

Dr. Treva Gear: We’re taking them and then using them as a weapon against the earth, against our climate, against our people. So goes the story of the wood pellet industry in our country. 

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Host: This is Broken Ground, a podcast by the Southern Environmental Law Center. I’m Leanna First-Arai, your host. Here at Broken Ground, we dig up environmental stories in the South, and introduce you to the people at the heart of them.

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Host: On this episode of Broken Ground … we’re going to talk about a phenomenon that’s chewing up our Southern forests, worsening climate change, and hurting the health of rural southern communities – all under the guise of “green,” “sustainable,” “renewable” energy. 

 

Heather Hillaker: It only took a little bit of information, before people very quickly saw this for what it was, which is a false climate solution and a sham.

Host: This is Heather Hillaker, an environmental attorney who works on biomass at the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Heather Hillaker: It’s really important to be clear on what we’re talking about. When we talk about biomass we’re referring to the process of harvesting trees, drying and compressing them into wood pellets and then shipping them overseas to be burned for electricity.

Host: Most pellets produced here in the South go to the UK, where they’re increasingly replacing COAL as a fuel source inside power plants. This transition from coal to wood is touted by industry as a key climate solution helping the UK achieve its decarbonization goals. But there’s a reason SELC calls this the “biomass climate hoax.”

Heather Hillaker: Burning wood pellets emits more CO2 per unit of energy generated than coal does.

Leanna First-Arai: Woo! How do we live in this world!? I, I … that’s mind shattering.

Heather Hillaker: Yeah, so, instead of reducing carbon emissions, the transition from fossil fuels to biomass is worsening climate change. 

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Host: Wood pellets have spurred two very different debates: one about these true climate impacts … and a second debate about the environmental injustices that pellet plants are introducing into rural, largely Black and low-income communities. Let’s start there. 

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Host: Our executive producer Emily Richardson-Lorente traveled with our Associate Producer Noa Greenspan to visit one of those communities. 

Noa Greenspan: Testing, testing. We are here at the Claiborne’s house, in northeast North Carolina. 

Host: Kathy and Earl Claiborne’s house is one of about a dozen tidy homes lining a dead end dirt road in the town of Gaston, population 1,008. They have a big, tree-lined back yard and a welcoming front porch. It seems like a nice place for Earl, a veteran and retired prison guard, to relax with his wife Kathy, a pre-kindergarten teacher. They moved here in 2008. 

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Emily Richardson-Lorente: What drew you to the neighborhood? 

Kathy Claiborne: Peace and quiet. 

Earl Claiborne: It sure was. (laughing) It sure was.

Kathy Claiborne: We looked for a while – almost a year, trying to find a nice, comfortable place to live. And it was comfortable and nice until that plant got over there.

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Host: Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet maker, operates ten pellet plants across the Southeast, including one that now sits just beyond the tree line here. When construction began over a decade ago …

Kathy Claiborne: Everybody was asking everybody, ‘What is that going to be over there?’ Nobody knew. 

Host: But the Claibornes and their neighbors soon found out. Logging trucks rumbling past the end of their road day and night. Dust in the air and on every surface. And noise. So much noise. The grinding. The chipping. The “hammer shredding!?” But the worst sound? 

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Kathy Claiborne: It’s like something is dropping in a machine and it’s really loud, like BOOM! 

Host: That “boom” is likely the sound of the “de-barking” process, where whole tree trunks and logs are literally dropped into a giant rotating drum and slammed all around until their bark falls off. 

Kathy Claiborne: And our alarm used to go off by the noise and the vibration from the plant. 

Emily Richardson-Lorente: Your home alarm? 

Earl Claiborne: Yes.

Kathy Claiborne: Yes. Uh-huh. It used to wake me up. I couldn’t go back to sleep. 

Emily Richardson-Lorente: And how often do they operate? 

Kathy Claiborne: Every day. 

Earl Claiborne: Every day. 

Emily Richardson-Lorente: Is it 24 hours a day? 

Earl Claiborne: Mm-Hmm. 

Emily Richardson-Lorente: Seven days a week? 

Kathy Claiborne: Yes.

Earl Claiborne: Seven days a week.

Host: The disruption to the Claiborne’s sleep schedule has been so prolonged now, that Kathy rarely even TRIES to sleep at night, when the sound from the plant is most noticeable. Instead … she naps. 

Kathy Claiborne: People come over to visit me during the day, they say, ‘You fall asleep on us!’ I say, ‘That’s the only time I can get some sleep.’ And I don’t mean to fall asleep, but I told them you know, my body be tired. And sometimes I get evil. (laughing)

Earl Claiborne: What? You do? (l     aughing)

Emily Richardson-Lorente: Well, I need more details about you getting evil. 

Kathy Claiborne: (laughing) Well, like, if he was about to say something, I’d be snapping. 

Host: Kathy’s exhaustion may cause her to snap at her husband occasionally, but the Claiborne’s have another concern as well: the air. The pellet plant releases a variety of air pollutants that the Claibornes can’t see, and one they can: so-called “fugitive dust.” Miniscule wood fibers that Earl says look like tiny hairs cover everything from their vehicles, to their porch furniture, to their barbecue grill. Which leaves Earl thinking … 

Earl Claiborne: I wonder what we’re breathing in. How many small particles are we taking in? 

Host: Heather Hillaker hopes to capture the potential health effects of that air pollution in a survey that SELC and its partners are conducting in a handful of rural communities with pellet plants. They’re trying to put some hard data behind the disturbing stories that folks like Kathy and Earl have been shouting into the void for years now. 

Heather Hillaker (in the field): Okay, so you’re within a half a mile and then let me just pull up the survey.

Host: Heather conducted the Claiborne’s survey in their backyard.

Heather Hillaker: Do you have any concerns that prevent you from doing regular outdoor activities or make them unpleasant? 

Kathy Claiborne: Yes, because a lot of time when I come out to try to work in my yard, it’s a lot of dust. That’s why you saw me with my mask on, because once I go in the house and sit, I start to sneezing and I start to coughing. Then I have to use my pump to, um, to get myself back together.

Earl Claiborne: Maybe that’s why I have bronchitis more than I usually have. It’s been flaring up bad. 

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Richie Harding (at rally): Good morning! First, I want you to understand the importance of you being here.

Host: This is Richie Harding, speaking to a couple dozen environmental advocates and residents sitting in folding chairs on the Claiborne’s front lawn. They’re all here to learn more about the pellet plant next door, and to help kick off that community survey. 

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Richie Harding: I’m not opposed to industry, not opposed to growth, development, but we want to make sure that what’s here is not harming us. 

(clapping) 

Host: Richie is a dad, a disabled vet, a long-time community youth volunteer, and more recently, an environmental activist pushing back on the pellet plant, industrial hog farms and other polluting industries in his hometown.

Richie Harding: I am in love with what I’m doing. And, um, one of my sons is here. I have a couple of nephews and my niece, they are here and I try to keep them involved with what I’m doing and letting them know that, it’s our responsibility to take care of this, this wonderful asset that we have called Earth. And I want them to be able to do some of the things that I’m doing. You know, I don’t want what I’m doing or what Belinda’s doing to just stop because one of us is gone. 

Host: The “Belinda” Richie just mentioned is Belinda Joyner. She’s a long-time county resident and an outspoken environmental advocate, who recruited Richie into the pellet fight.

Belinda Joyner: We’re a community of color. We’re a tier one county, so they feel like y’all a poor county, anything that we give y’all, y’all ought to be happy with it, you know? Simple as that. 

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Host: Now 71 years old, Belinda has been working on environmental issues for HALF her life, and she’s seen her low-income community be targeted by undesirable industry too many times to count.

Belinda Joyner: Oh, well, we had the Atlantic Coast pipeline. We fought that. It took us six years, but we stopped it. We had to fight off a factory, a chemical factory. We fought off Wackenhut prison. Coal ash recycling plant. We fought off a liquid fertilizer plant. I mean, it’s just so many things down through the years that we had to fight, that ordinarily, you know, we shouldn’t have to fight for it. 

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Host: In all that time, Belinda has learned a thing or two about battling environmental injustices. And she has some pretty specific advice for the neighbors attending the rally. 

Belinda Joyner (at rally): Go to your economic development meetings. Because they’re the people that go out and bring whatever it is in your community. If you know about it, you have a chance to fight it. 

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Host: Though the Claibornes and their closest neighbors knew nothing about the pellet plant before it was constructed, county officials knew plenty. In fact, according to a story published by CNN, the county actively recruited Enviva – offering up 120 acres of land, half a million dollars in infrastructure investments, AND cash payments totaling one point eight MILLION dollars. The promise of bringing ‘economic development’ to the county must have been irresistible. Locals would get jobs. The county’s tax revenues would go up, and everyone would prosper. But here’s the kicker, according to attorney Heather Hillaker: 

Heather Hillaker: The director of economic development in Northampton County, North Carolina, went on the record saying that the county basically over incentivized Enviva so much that they had to increase the property tax rate. 

Host: That meant that here, in one of the poorest counties in North Carolina, folks like Richie Harding were suddenly paying the third highest property tax rates in the state.

Richie Harding: We hear from our local leaders that if, if these facilities aren’t here, then we’re going to have some serious economical problems. I would say they are full of it. It’s really heartbreaking that when you have businesses come in, they’re not based from here, they’re not doing anything for us at all, and they’re just scavenging our communities. 

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Host: What Richie wants … what Belinda and the Claibornes want … is for the pellet plant to go away. But failing that … they at least want it to be a better neighbor.

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Richie Harding: If they’re going to be here, it would be nice for them to work with our communities, the hours where the debarking or things of that nature are going on in the middle of the night would cease, where they actually install fugitive dust controls to try to keep the dust out of people’s yards and homes. 

Host: Belinda Joyner also wants local officials to see her largely Black and low-income end of the county as something more than a dumping ground. 

Belinda Joyner: That’s what I feel that we are: a dumping ground. We don’t have that support that we should have being in a rural county.

Host: Before leaving Gaston, we asked Earl Claiborne what advice he would give to anyone else who might be faced with a pellet plant coming to town.

Earl Claiborne: Fight it as soon as they can. As soon as they start hearing about it, fight it. Don’t let it come to your neighborhood. 

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Host: The pellet plant near the Claibornes is just one of a web of plants metastasizing in rural towns across the Southeast. 

Heather Hillaker: South Hampton, Virginia, Greenwood, South Carolina, Waycross, Georgia … (voice continues in background) 

Host: Heather Hillaker is listing, from memory, the locations of nearly 30 other pellet plants. They’re drawn here by our forests, which cover more than half of our land. And with nearly 90% of those forests privately owned and potentially for sale, the timber industry has always been big here. But in the last decade or so, wood pellet manufacturers joined the competition for trees …  what they euphemistically call “feedstock.” And now they can’t seem to build here fast enough. 

Heather Hillaker: And there are two pellet mills that are permitted and kind of awaiting construction, both in Adel, Georgia. 

Dr. Treva Gear: Okay. Well, Adel is a place where everybody knows your name.

Host: This is Doctor Treva Gear. She’s a veteran and a former high school biology teacher, with a doctorate in education. And out of necessity … she’s quickly becoming an expert on wood pellet plants. She was born and raised here in Adel, in the home where her parents still live. 

Dr. Treva Gear: It was a community, a village. Deep South Georgia. Just slow and easy. That’s Adel. However, it also is a tale of two cities. 

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Dr. Treva Gear: Of the haves and the have nots. 

Host: Doctor Gear wanted us to see that disparity for ourselves … so we could better understand the people and places being impacted by the pellet industry.

Dr. Treva Gear: I’ll probably just take you over there first and then circle back around and you’ll get to see all the crap.

Host: She gave us a tour of town, starting on the west side, where she grew up. It’s predominantly Black and low income.

Dr. Treva Gear: What you’re seeing here, this is a densely populated portion of our community. And then you have Del-Cook lumber right here. 

Host: The former Del-Cook lumber yard is one of the many industrial sites on the west side of Adel that Doctor Gear worries about. They used to make utility poles here, and it’s incredibly close to the public housing complex sitting just across a narrow street. 

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Dr. Treva Gear: There were lots of chemicals being used there because that creosote would keep termites and things from, um, from harming the trees, which is why they were utility poles. So these houses were here when Del-Cook was in operation. Lots of people who lived here had health issues. 

Leanna First-Arai: Yeah. 

Host: Doctor Gear points out some other neighborhood features unique to the west side: high-power transmission lines, a sewage lift station, even a Bitcoin mining operation.

Dr. Treva Gear: I’m going to take you down Martin Luther King Boulevard because it’s very ironic. So, you see how everything borders directly in the back door of the community. Once you go across the railroad tracks, it’s a different world.

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Dr. Treva Gear: So this is the east side. As you see, things look a little different over here. I didn’t even know they have – what kind of little shop is that over there? That’s cute! 

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Dr. Treva Gear: You have more tree coverage over here. More green space. This is a very cushy part of town, um, higher property values, of course. That’s another problem with industry being in our communities because it drives our property values down. Like, who wants to move over there? Who wants to buy our house in those areas? But as you can see, this is a very different environment. 

Host: Growing up here in Adel, Doctor Gear admits that she really didn’t think much about the threat from industrial facilities clustered on the west side, or the impact all of those sources of pollution might be having on the community’s health. For better or worse, folks here were just used to them. 

Dr. Treva Gear: Adel has a sordid history with the wood industry. So we’ve always had wood industries or had factories in our community. So it doesn’t seem strange. You know, that’s just how those people live. That’s just how they, how they make a living. That’s just their economy. And so nobody looks at it strangely.

Host: But then, a while back, Doctor Gear got wind of yet one more industry moving in. 

Dr. Treva Gear: I was running for state Senate. And I wanted to bring the community members of Adel together, community leaders, to talk about what was needed. And what I found out is that there was a wood pellet plant coming to town. And that’s when I was like, nooo, I don’t think that’s a good idea. 

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Host: So Doctor Gear and the other community members formed a group: Concerned Citizens of Cook County, also known as “4C.” At this point, the pellet plant proposed by Renewable Biomass Group wasn’t yet a done deal. The land they wanted to build on, about a mile outside of town and upwind from West Adel, still needed to be rezoned from “agricultural” to “heavy industrial.” 

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Dr. Treva Gear (at protest, on video): We’re out here live from the Adel City Hall.  

Dr. Treva Gear: We attended the city council meetings, we attended the hearings, provided them with the information, we petitioned them. We had billboards up. (laughing)  It was very vocal.

Dr. Treva Gear (at protest, on video): So we can do better. Come on out Cook County. Come out, come out.  

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Host: Yet despite all that advocacy … 

Dr. Treva Gear: They got their zoning and they were coming. So then that was that. 

Host: The community would just have to wait and see how their new “neighbor” would impact them. But then, 9 months later …. 

Dr. Treva Gear: We found out a second plant would be coming, that would be even larger than the first, the largest wood pellet plant in the world. That would be Spectrum. 

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Spectrum Video Narrator: Spectrum Energy is creating renewable energy to fuel the future …

Host: Despite being new to the pellet industry, Spectrum Energy has big ambitions. And it sees them coming to fruition right here in Adel. 

Spectrum Video Narrator: The world needs clean renewable energy, and Adel needs a good employer providing stable jobs. 

Host: But unlike the town’s FIRST proposed pellet plant, the Spectrum plant would repurpose a defunct particleboard factory right in town, with its chipping operation set up in the old Dell-Cook lumber yard, steps from the public housing we visited earlier. As Dr. Gear says …

Dr. Treva Gear: It’s too close for comfort. The Spectrum plant is directly in the community. 

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Host: Despite its proximity, Doctor Gear says 4C wouldn’t have known anything about this second plant if outside advocacy groups hadn’t alerted them. 

Dr. Treva Gear: It wasn’t in the paper. Nobody came to us to tell us. They would not have had to go through any special permitting process or have any rezoning done. So typically, had we not been connected, it just would have been like, ‘Wow, there’s a plant.’

Leanna First-Arai: That’s crazy. Remind me how that’s legal? 

(laughing) 

Heather Hillaker: Oftentimes, it’s kept confidential until some kind of decision is made on a tax break or a subsidy or a zoning. 

Host: Attorney Heather Hillaker again.

Heather Hillaker: And then they follow through whatever public participation requirements are needed, but the city’s already bought in at that point. 

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Host: Heather says there’s really only ONE strong legal hook that organizations like hers can use to try to influence pellet plants, because they face so little regulation.

Heather Hillaker: Air permits are one of the only kind of regulatory requirements of these wood pellet manufacturing facilities. And so we saw that from the beginning as a good mechanism to really internalize the costs of its operations, making sure that if you are going to operate here, you’re going to do it in compliance with the law.

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Host: Complying with the law seems like a pretty low bar. But in fact, pellet plants across the South are notorious for violating the terms of their permits, and emitting more pollutants than they’re allowed to. And we’re not just talking about the wood dust coating cars and homes, but far more harmful substances that neighbors can’t see. Stuff that, frankly, I was surprised to learn came from processing trees. Among them … 

Heather Hillaker: Formaldehyde, methanol, acrolein or acrolein. They are carcinogenic or likely carcinogenic, have really harmful impacts at very low levels of exposure. 

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Host: The Environmental Protection Agency has labeled these substances “Hazardous Air Pollutants” or “HAPS” for short. And while the agency does allow pellet producers to legally release small amounts of this stuff into the air surrounding their facilities, the reality in some cases is …

Heather Hillaker: Some facilities are emitting about three times the level of hazardous air pollutants than what they’re permitted for.

Host: More often than not, these over-emitting facilities receive only a small fine or, worse, no punishment at all.

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Heather Hillaker: And so now we’re working to try to make sure that these facilities are being permitted correctly as major sources of hazardous air pollutants. 

Host: Reclassifying wood pellet plants as quote “major sources of pollution” would require them to implement additional safeguards to protect the surrounding communities. Communities like Adel.

Dr. Treva Gear: Was it what you imagined? 

Host: Doctor Gear brought us to the future site of the Spectrum wood pellet plant. She invited Miss Celeste Hayes, another 4C member and veteran, to join us. Miss Celeste and Doctor Gear arrived in matching black t-shirts. On the front, the shirts say, “Concerned Citizens of Cook County” and on the back: “Getting into good trouble.” A nod to the late Georgia Congressman, John Lewis.

Celestine Hayes: You know, when I saw the shirts, I’m concerned, I’m a citizen. 

Leanna First-Arai: Mm-hmm.

Celestine Hayes: I’m concerned, so you know, I’m in. Because I’ve only been here maybe about 22 years and I’ve seen no improvement in those years. And I’m saying, well, you know, what can be done? We’re overburdened and we’re underserved. I’m gonna try my best to do something to help change it. 

Leanna First-Arai: Yeah.

Celestine Hayes: So, you know, I got with them, next thing I know, ‘Well, we would like for you to run.’ I said, run where? (laughing) We want you to run for the city council. I said, no, no, no.

Host: To Doctor Gear, it was the next logical step. If City Council won’t respond to your group’s concerns … then get your group on City Council. 

Dr. Treva Gear: Yeah, yeah.

Host: Despite Miss Celeste’s initial reluctance, she eventually agreed. And … she won. 

Dr. Treva Gear: We’re so glad to have her as a member and as our city leader. Nothing like warriors. We’re warriors! (laughing)

Celestine Hayes: Yes, yes, we are. Yes. 

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Host: Good thing too. Because almost as soon as the first pellet plant fight ended, the second began. This time, with assistance from SELC, 4C urged regulators to reject the air permit for the second plant, pointing out the absence of an environmental impact study and the discriminatory impact the plant would have on its Black neighbors. Never mind that there was already ONE pellet plant on the way.

Heather Hillaker: I’ve never seen a community where there were two pellet mills located or permitted. Not to mention two pellet mills being permitted in just over a year’s time from each other in a very small community. 

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Leanna First-Arai: So who is it, Dr. Gear, that wants these two plants in Adel, in West Adel?

Dr. Treva Gear: We did an open records request for our industrial authority and our economic development commission, and what we found is that they had been seeking – seeking! – out wood pellet plants in years prior to us, you know, actually having to deal with one. So I guess they finally got their wish. 

Leanna First-Arai:  The Georgia Environmental Protection Division – where do they come in in the story? 

Dr. Treva Gear: Oh my goodness. (laughing) I’ll just tell you this, they haven’t done much protecting for our community. They were adamant that they didn’t have to consider the demographics of our community, that they didn’t have to do any additional studies, that they were sure that it was not going to harm the citizens. 

Leanna First-Arai: Based on no data, huh?

Dr. Treva Gear: Exactly. The Georgia EPD never stepped up to say, ‘Hey, maybe we’ll do an Environmental Impact Study. Maybe you’re on to something.’ They said nothing.

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Host: So perhaps unsurprisingly, the air permit for that second plant was approved. But then … 

Heather Hillaker: SELC ended up representing 4C in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Division for its issuance of that permit. 

Dr. Treva Gear: That’s big because otherwise they could have went full battle rattle ahead and it would be a whole different story.

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Leanna First-Arai: Full battle rattle. 

Dr. Treva Gear: Yeah. 

Leanna First-Arai: Is that a, is that an original Doctor Gear or … 

Dr. Treva Gear: That’s a military thing. Full battle rattle, you got your Kevlar, got your LCV, you’re ready to roll. So yeah.

Leanna First-Arai: Full battle rattle.

Dr. Treva Gear: Yeah, full battle rattle.

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Host: While SELC worked the legal angle, you could say Doctor Gear decided to go “full battle rattle” herself. In addition to heading up 4C, she accepted a job fighting pellet mills full time. Now she’s with the Dogwood Alliance, a non-profit that works to protect Southern forests. 

Dr. Treva Gear: I did a presentation and a kid told me, ‘So you’re the Lorax!’ (laughing) I said, ‘I am.’

Host: Like the Lorax, she speaks for the trees! Of course, the trees here could use as many people speaking for them as they can get. Because even if pellet mills were absolutely delightful neighbors – no noise, no traffic, no toxic emissions … they would still be ravaging our forests. 

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Host: According to conservative estimates, over 100,000 acres of Southern forests are cleared every year for wood pellets. 

Dr. Treva Gear: That’s a lot of trees. 

Leanna First-Arai: Yeah.

Dr. Treva Gear: And we know that trees are the solution for pollution, but we’re taking them and then using them as a weapon against the earth, against our climate, against our people. The big problem is that agencies tout that new trees are constantly being planted. And so that’s the storyline. 

Leanna First-Arai: Mm-hmm.

Host: Doctor Gear calls that a “storyline” because many forests simply aren’t replanted. There’s no law that compels private landowners to restore their woodlands. And even when they attempt it, they’re planting saplings – nothing like the mature trees that were sequestering so much carbon.

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Dr. Treva Gear: It’s like, you have five workers and then you lose those five workers or maybe they die. You can’t just pop up with five babies and say, ‘Oh, now we have five replacements.’ The trees, it’s the same thing. 

Host: The devastation of our Southern woodlands is genuinely a slow-moving natural disaster … one that, according to Heather Hillaker, could soon worsen – or potentially improve – with two critical upcoming decisions. In the UK, the government is weighing whether to extend the renewable energy subsidies that have made burning pellets profitable for power producers like Drax, the primary importer of pellets from the southeastern U.S.

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Heather Hillaker: Now we’re getting to the end of these subsidies, we’ve got about three years left and Drax is panicking, so to speak.

Leanna First-Arai: Mm-hmm.

Heather Hillaker: This is an industry that is completely dependent on government support. It is not economic and feasible without these subsidies. 

Host: The second critical decision will be made closer to home. Any day now, the U.S. Treasury will decide: should the power produced by burning biomass be classified as “clean energy”? 

Heather Hillaker: It has opened up a very real threat that the biomass industry will get tax credits which is essentially a government subsidy. It has the potential to just drastically change the landscape in the U.S. 

Host: Heather means that both figuratively … and literally. If pellet production ramps up, more and more forests will be clear-cut here in the South. 

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Host: But there HAVE been a couple of recent bright spots in the pellet fight. Remember that lawsuit about Spectrum’s air permit? Well, it pushed the pellet company into negotiations with 4C, and resulted in some significant commitments to protect the community’s health and well-being.

Dr. Treva Gear: What we negotiated is that, my gosh, this would be the cleanest wood pellet plant in the world! 

Heather Hillaker: Spectrum was required to purchase air monitors and provide pollution data to the community. Increased testing for more of those hazardous air pollutants than would have been required. 

Dr. Treva Gear: They can’t run their chipping operation 24/7. It has to shut down at a certain part of the day. We’re going to be involved in the fugitive dust plan. We even talked about the routing of the trucks and how they go through our community and out. I think that’s the best we could ever do. And I don’t think anything like this has ever happened with the wood pellet plant prior to any damages being done to the community. 

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Host: And there’s another recent bit of good news …

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Newscaster: New tonight at six, the world’s biggest wood to energy company Enviva filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  

Host: Yup …. the world’s largest wood pellet manufacturer declared bankruptcy earlier this year. The company says it’s going to restructure and that the ten plants it owns here in the Southeast will continue operating. But this begs the question: if Enviva can’t turn a profit, can any other pellet company? Will smaller firms like Spectrum and Renewable Biomass Group proceed with their plans in Adel? Or will they see the writing on the wall and tap out? As of this recording, there’s still no significant signs of construction on either plant site, and both companies have blown past their planned opening date.

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Host: But whatever happens with the pellet plants in Adel, there is a silver lining here in town.

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Host: The group that rose up in response to the pellet threat – Concerned Citizens of Cook County – remains, still “getting into good trouble.” And as Doctor Gear knows, that’s a huge first step when it comes to fighting injustices in communities that have historically been overlooked. 

Dr. Treva Gear: When I think about the places I’ve been and that I’ve visited, lots of times in the South and in little small rural towns, we can’t get assistance or nobody sees us. Some communities are not organized, they’re just suffering, poisoned in plain sight while suffering in silence. 

Host: These days, 4C is taking what it learned from the wood pellet fights, and turning the power of its advocacy to a broader mission. 

Dr. Treva Gear: Environmental justice issues to social justice, just looking at improving our community, making it a better place to live, not the place that you leave, but the place that you want to stay and that you can be healthy in and prosper.

Host: Meanwhile, back in Gaston, North Carolina, Kathy and Earl Claiborne are holding their breath, waiting to see how Enviva’s bankruptcy might impact the pellet mill next door. Nobody knows for sure. 

Emily Richardson-Lorente: What do you hope happens now? 

Kathy Claiborne: I hope I can get – one day I can get some rest and I can come outside and sit on my porch without going in the house coughing and sneezing. 

Earl Claiborne: I wish for clean air. And maybe one day, like they said, you know, they’re bankrupt now, maybe their plant will close down. So that problem will be behind us. Hopefully.

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Host: That does it for this episode of Broken Ground. If you’re interested in learning more about the biomass “climate hoax,” seeing the results of that pellet mill community impacts survey we mentioned at the top of the episode, or if you’d just like to see pictures of some of the really wonderful people who we interviewed, head to our website, Broken Ground Podcast dot O-R-G. 

Broken Ground is a podcast by the Southern Environmental Law Center, one of the nation’s most powerful defenders of the environment … rooted in the South. It’s produced by Emily Richardson-Lorente, Noa Greenspan, Paige Polk, Jennie Daley, and me, Leanna First-Arai, with special thanks to Ko Bragg and Sam Lenga. Our theme music is by Eric Knutson. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love it if you’d write us a review on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening. 

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