Wood pellets production boomed to feed EU demand. It’s come at a cost to Black people in the South

This southern Mississippi town's expansive wood pellet plant was so close to Shelia Mae Dobbins' home that she sometimes heard company loudspeakers. She says industrial residues coated her truck and she no longer enjoys spending time in the air outdoors.

Dobbins feels her life — and health — were better before 2016, when Drax opened a facility able to compress 450,000 tons of wood chips annually in the majority Black town of Gloster, Mississippi. To her, it's no coincidence federal regulators find residents are exposed to unwanted air particles and they experience asthma more than most of the country.

Her asthma and diabetes were once under control, but since a 2017 diagnosis of heart and lung disease, Dobbins has frequently lived at the end of a breathing tube connected to an oxygen cannister.

“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.”

Wood pellet production skyrocketed across the U.S. South. It helped feed demand in the European Union for renewable energy, as those coutries sought to replace fossil fuels such as coal. But many residents near plants — often African Americans in poor, rural swaths — find the process left their air dustier and people sicker.

Billions of dollars are available for these projects under President Joe Biden's signature law combating climate change. The administration is weighing whether to open up tax credits for companies to burn wood pellets for energy.

As producers expand west, environmentalists want the government to stop incentivizing what they call a misguided attempt to curb carbon emissions that pollute communities of color while presently warming the atmosphere.