Latest news with #EnvironmentalIntegrityProject
WIRED
14-06-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Wood Pellet Mills Are Prone to Catching Fire. Why Build Them in California?
Jun 14, 2025 2:00 AM Facilities that make wood pellets have a track record of catching alight. Yet there are plans to build several near Yosemite's tinderbox forests. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/ AP Images This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Wood pellets, by design, are highly flammable. The small pieces of compressed woody leftovers, like sawdust, are used in everything from home heating to grilling. But their flammable nature has made for dangerous work conditions: Since 2010, at least 52 fires have broken out at the facilities that make wood pellets across the US, according to a database of incidents compiled by the Southern Environmental Law Center. Of the 15 largest wood pellet facilities, at least eight have had fires or explosions since 2014, according to the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit founded by a former director of the US Environmental Protection Agency. At the same time, the world's largest biomass company, Drax, is cutting down trees across North America with a promise to sell them as a replacement for fossil fuels. But even its track record is checkered with accidents. In South Shields, UK, wood pellets destined for a Drax plant spontaneously combusted while in storage at the Port of Tyne, starting a fire that took 40 firefighters 12 hours to extinguish. In Port Allen, Louisiana, a Drax wood-pellet facility burst into flames in November 2021. Now, despite finding itself in the midst of a lawsuit over accidental fire damages, Drax is pressing on with a new business proposal; it involves not just cutting down trees to make wood pellets, but, the company argues, also to help stop wildfires. In October 2023, after purchasing two parcels of land in California to build two pellet mills, one in Tuolumne County and another in Lassen County, Drax's partner organization, Golden State Natural Resources, or GSNR, 'a nonprofit public benefit corporation,' met with residents of Tuolumne County to address concerns about its vision for how the process of manufacturing wood pellets can mitigate wildfire risk. GSNR has since touted its close work with community members. However, according to Megan Fiske, who instructs rural workers at a local community college, residents living close to the proposed pellet mill sites were not always aware of the plans. 'People who were a hundred feet away from the [proposed] pellet plant had no idea about it,' said Fiske. Both of the proposed mills are in forested areas that have been threatened by wildfires. When asked about the risks that manufacturing wood pellets poses, Patrick Blacklock, executive director of GSNR, told Grist, 'We sought to learn from those incidents. The design features can go a long way to mitigating the risk of fire.' If county representatives approve the plan, loggers will be allowed to take 'dead or dying trees' and 'woody biomass' from within a 100-mile radius of the pellet mills within the two counties, which overlap with the Stanislaus National Forest and the Yosemite National Park. Fiske said she's seen instances, unrelated to Drax, where loggers weren't trained properly and ended up taking more wood than should have been allowed under a wildfire resilience scheme. 'There's a difference between what the loggers are told and what happens on the ground,' said Fiske. You have 'inexperienced or young people who are underpaid, maybe English isn't their first language, so there are a lot of barriers.' Residents of Lassen and Tuolumne counties are fighting against Drax's plans to build the pellet mills, telling Grist that making wood pellets in forested areas and thinning the forests at the same time would only compound the risk of fires in their communities. 'They are downplaying the scale of this over and over again,' said Renee Orth, a Tuolumne County resident pushing back against development plans. In January 2024, Drax formalized its partnership with GSNR with a memorandum of understanding. Several months later, the company announced that it was creating a new subsidiary, called Elimini, to take over the work in California and focus on 'carbon removal' in the United States. But before Elimini and GSNR can build their mills, they are hoping to secure a viable plan for transporting the wood pellets. GSNR intends to build a facility in Stockton, about 100 miles west of the pellet mills, to transport the wood pellets overseas. That plan has been met with strong opposition. Little Manila Rising—a community-led group of mostly south Stockton residents—has decided to take a stand against Drax, which needs approval from the city before it can begin building its transport facility. 'Right now, our community has the opportunity to determine if we even want an industry at our port that has a proven recent track record of fires, explosions, and fugitive wood dust emissions,' said Gloria Alonso Cruz, environmental justice coordinator with Little Manila Rising. Cruz believes that GSNR is 'counting on a marginalized community's voice to go unheard.' 'We are not going to let that happen.' A Drax spokesperson told Grist that 'no decision has been made on any potential end market or on any future arrangement with GSNR,' but GSNR said that it has not signed any other MOU with another company. The draft environmental impact report states that Europe and Asia are the intended end markets for the wood pellets. The EU, along with Japan and South Korea, subsidize wood pellets as a renewable fuel, based on carbon accounting which assumes that the trees will grow back and replace the CO 2 that was burned after the trees were removed. But over the past few years, evidence has emerged that the burning of US-sourced wood is currently releasing annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to between 6 and 7 million passenger vehicles. One study suggested it can take between 44 and 104 years for new trees to reabsorb the carbon that was emitted during clear-cutting for wood pellets, and in a 2018 letter sent to members of the European Parliament, a group of 772 scientists concluded, 'Overall, replacing fossil fuels with wood [for biomass] will likely result in 2-3X more carbon in the atmosphere in 2050 per gigajoule of final energy.' To move forward, GSNR has to first wait for approval from the Port of Stockton. The port's director Kirk DeJesus says they are waiting for the environmental impact report to be completed before signing any agreement. GSNR released the draft environmental impact report on October 22, 2024, with a 90-day review period, where comments are submitted and incorporated into an amended version, which will be sent back to Golden State Finance Authority—the nonprofit that owns GSNR—later this year for approval. After that, GSNR will also have to get local permits for Tuolumne and Lassen counties and demonstrate compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. Climate activists block the entrance to Drax's May 2025 annual general meeting in London. Photograph:In its draft environmental impact report, GSNR says it anticipates the 'Biomass Only Thinning Projects will treat approximately 85,779 acres of forested land annually on average once the proposed project is fully operational.' If the project is green-lit, then approximately 2,640 square miles would be logged over a 20-year period, the equivalent of a mile-wide strip of forest stretching from Sacramento to Boston. Blacklock told Grist the organization based its wildfire project on research known as the Tamm Review, which found that thinning combined with prescribed burns can reduce wildfire severity by 62 to 72 percent. But climate scientist Dominick DellaSala said the authors of the Tamm Review mis-cited their own work and ignored 37 papers contradicting their findings. 'The forest is no longer a forest,' DellaSala added. 'The fire-thinning question has been very narrowly scoped to get a preconceived outcome … None of them look at the collateral damages to ecosystems and the climate—only if fuels are reduced enough to lower intensity.' Kim Davis, research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service and lead author of the 2014 Tamm Review study, said she stands by the findings that mechanical treatments can reduce future fire severity when combined with prescribed fires, adding that the 37 studies DellaSala cited were not included because they did not meet sufficiently strict scientific standards. 'This research underwent rigorous statistical, technical, and peer review,' said Davis. 'We respectfully disagree with the statement that our work improperly cited or misrepresented studies and data.' In any case, the US Forest Service already cuts down dense areas of forest it believes are particularly at risk from wildfires and burns them in controlled areas, known as slash piles. Blacklock said that the partnership between Drax and GSNR shares this same objective. From GSNR's perspective, and that of many local politicians, using wood which would otherwise be needlessly burned in wood-pellet facilities is a win-win. But campaigners say that, in other markets, Drax and its subsidiaries have extended their operations beyond slash piles, cutting down healthy trees to make wood pellets. In 2022, the BBC uncovered that wood used in Drax facilities had come from clear-cut primary forests in Canada, which can take thousands of years to grow back. A year later, after residents of a town in British Columbia, Canada, asked Drax to help clear nearby slash piles, Environment Ministry employees told The Tyee that tens of thousands of trees from healthy forests were being turned into wood pellets. Large trees of the kind chopped down in Canada act as wind buffers, according to DellaSala. When these trees are removed in logging operations, like opening the air vent on a wood stove, the increased ventilation can cause a fire to spread quickly. 'If a fire occurs it can spread rapidly through the forest due to higher wind speeds and drying out of the understory by tree canopy removals,' said DellaSala. 'Hence the forest is over-ventilated and more prone to fast-moving, wind-spread fires.' The pellet mills, which have a history of setting on fire and producing piles of combustible dust, have to be built in clearings within forests so that woody fuel can be delivered. Although GSNR assured residents it follows strict fire protocols, the proximity to the forest made some residents nervous, and has compounded worries that the wildfire treatment plan will make fires more likely, not less. Drax's involvement has also not reassured them. The company has recently come under scrutiny from regulators. The UK energy regulator Ofgem slapped the company with a $25 million fine in August 2024 for misreporting sustainability data. Three months later, Land and Climate Review reported that Drax has broken US environmental rules more than 11,000 times according to public records. The breaches have spurred action from communities across the Golden State, with 185 organizations asking California to reject the wood-pellet proposal. Orth, one of the Tuolumne County residents Grist spoke with, captured the argument against Drax and GSNR very succinctly: 'It's greenwashing through and through,' she said.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Developers propose more than 100 new gas power plants in Texas
Companies plan to build more than 100 new gas-fired power plants in Texas in the next few years amid a race to meet enormous electrical demand from energy-hungry industries, according to a report released Wednesday by the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit. The projects would amount to 58,000 megawatts of new generation capacity, enough to power more than 8 million average American households, although many likely won't move past the planning stage. The report said proposed plants in Texas aim to support data centers for artificial intelligence and other heavy industries. They would also add an estimated 115 million metric tons of greenhouse gases every year to the atmosphere — as much as nearly 27 million more gasoline-powered cars on the road. 'Building more natural gas infrastructure and power plants would saddle Texas' growing population with more health-harming pollution and contribute to planet-warming greenhouse gases,' according to the 24-page report written by research analyst Griffin Bird. The research reviewed permit applications, government data, public announcements and records from Texas' grid operator to tally 108 proposed new gas plants and 17 expansions. That includes four projects currently under construction, 33 that have received permits but haven't broken ground and 98 that are proposed. More than 60 projects aim for completion by the end of 2028. The rapid buildout mirrors a global trend and comes as Texas authorities expect statewide power demand to nearly double by 2030, driven largely by a proliferation of advanced computing facilities. 'The sheer volume of additional gas projects quickly popping up in Texas that EIP have been flagging through air permit applications is indeed astonishing,' said Jenny Martos, manager of the oil and gas plant tracker at Global Energy Monitor, a California-based nonprofit. Martos said gas power expansion globally is largely seen in Asian countries. In the U.S., Texas leads all other states in existing gas power generation and planned gas power generation, as well as production of oil and gas. It is also a leader in renewable energy. Still, Martos said the gas projects face 'headwinds' and uncertainties. Among them: the use and possible regulations of artificial intelligence technology and the massive speculative energy demands related to AI's evolution. A year ago, the Biden Administration was urging 100% renewable energy in the United States by 2035. Now, the AI boom has upended all calculations. Energy projects face supply delays and prices have surged for gas-fired turbines, essential for production. 'Manufacturers were caught flat-footed,' said Daniel Cohan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Houston. 'The cost of the gas turbines is now more than the cost of wind and solar farms, even before considering that you have to pay for the fuel.' Authorities in Texas have taken steps to support natural gas as the predominant power source, even after years of steep growth in the state's wind and solar power generation. During legislative sessions in 2023 and 2025, lawmakers provided a total $10 billion in public financing of low-cost loans for new gas plants. No such taxpayer funds were designated to encourage wind or solar farms. Projections of data center growth and energy consumption have led to optimistic expectations for Texas gas producers. Residents who live near planned gas plants are less enthusiastic. In the tiny town of Blue in Lee County, neighbors are fighting plans for a massive power plant that would primarily serve private, commercial customers many miles away. They are worried about air, noise and light pollution and their quality of life. 'If you're going to build a bunch of gas plants, don't plop them down in the middle of nice, quiet, peaceful communities like ours,' said Travis Brown, a former state department of agriculture worker and spokesperson for a group called Move the Gas Plant. 'Preserving what's left of rural Texas should be a priority. That's an important part of our culture and our heritage.' While natural gas burns much cleaner than coal, it still creates soot and emissions including greenhouse gases that warm the planet, nitrogen oxides that contribute to ozone formation, and known human carcinogens like benzene and formaldehyde. The Environmental Integrity Project report found, in some cases, Texas allowed developers of large gas power plants to circumvent big parts of the permit process for major pollution sources. Companies underrepresented prospective emissions in their applications and then sought 'standard' permits meant for smaller facilities rather than new 'major source' permits, the EIP report found. Major source permitting requires more time for public notice and comment and companies must commit to the best available emissions control technology. One example cited by EIP: EmberGreen and EmberYork, related companies that received permits for two 900 MW gas plants in the towns of Sealy and Wharton. The permit applications represented the facilities' emissions as below the thresholds of major pollution sources for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde when assuming 3,900 hours of operation, or about 162 days, per year. However, EIP wrote, the facilities' permits contained no requirement to limit operations to 3,900 hours per year, or to report operating hours. Likewise, a 930 MW gas plant by ENGIE in Robstown received permits as a minor source assuming 2,000 hours of annual operation. But its permit also included no limitations of operating hours. The state's environmental regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has routinely enabled industrial developers to avoid the requirements of major source pollution review by issuing smaller permits, according to a 2023 investigation by Inside Climate News and the Texas Tribune. The TCEQ did not respond to queries from Inside Climate News about the new report, nor did EmberClear or ENGIE. Patton Dycus, EIP's senior attorney, said federal law requires emissions sources to be evaluated based on their full capacity to emit unless they are specifically limited in permits. In April, Dycus wrote the federal Environmental Protection Agency urging a review of Texas' permitting of the new gas plants. 'If new gas-fired plants that are major sources of criteria pollutants are constructed without the required Clean Air Act construction permits, that construction would be unlawful,' the letter said. 'TCEQ must not permit future similar gas-fired power plants through standard permitting.' Disclosure: Rice University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer. Get tickets. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI data centers could drive a new wave of Texas air pollution, report finds
The boom in artificial intelligence (AI) risks filling Texas air with toxins, a report has found. State regulators are considering proposals for more than 100 new gas power projects — the vast majority of them entirely new plants — to power a new wave of data centers, according to findings published early Wednesday by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). More than 30 have already been permitted in a process that amounts to a 'rubber stamp,' the EIP said. 'To meet its increasing demand for electricity, Texas should be encouraging more clean energy instead of feeding public subsidies to dirty fossil fuels,' Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a statement. The plants spread across the state but cluster around Houston, the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio and the oilfields of West Texas. If all are built, they could produce as much pollution each year as another 27 million new cars and trucks — the equivalent of doubling Texas's current motor vehicle fleet, the report found. Oil and gas pollution includes volatile organic carcinogens such as benzene, asthma-triggering compounds including ozone and nitrogen oxides and lung-burrowing particles like PM 2.5. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state's environmental regulator, declined The Hill's request for comment on the analysis. The report comes in the wake of the failure of a slate bills at the Texas legislature that had sought to restrict the growth of renewables in favor of gas power — an issue that drove an acrimonious inter-party debate within the state's ruling GOP. One major reason for that failure: the state's insatiable demand for electricity, which the state's grid managers have estimated could double by the end of the decade, largely due to new cryptocurrency miners, data centers and oilfield operations. In the fight over the renewable restrictions, wind, solar and battery advocates pitched their technologies — which can be installed much faster than gas — as ideal to meet that demand. 'Everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, but there's no need to go big with gas plant pollution when there are cleaner alternatives,' said Adrian Shelley, the Texas director for civil society group Public Citizen. 'Texas is already number one in clean energy, which helps save the electric grid and reduce consumer costs, so we should rely on clean energy to increase our supply of electricity,' Shelley added. But with a 'frantic race' to build capacity amid long wait times to connect to the grid, data center developers are increasingly turning to a new wave of privately owned gas plants, according to reporting this week from The Texas Tribune. One such plant, outside the rapidly growing Central Texas town of New Braunfels, will generate about 1.2 gigawatts of power — about two-thirds as much generation capacity as is needed for the million-plus people of nearby Austin. But all that power will go entirely to data centers, the Tribune found. Despite the plants' size — some are large enough to power a medium-sized city — EIP contends that Texas regulators incorrectly classified three of them as belonging to a Clean Air Act category designed for minor sources of pollution. That would mean that the gas plants will not have to use the best available technology to clean their emissions, causing a greater release of health-harming chemicals. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
AI data centers could drive a new wave of Texas air pollution, report finds
The boom in artificial intelligence (AI) risks filling Texas air with toxins, a report has found. State regulators are considering proposals for more than 100 new gas power projects — the vast majority of them entirely new plants — to power a new wave of data centers, according to findings published early Wednesday by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). More than 30 have already been permitted in a process that amounts to a 'rubber stamp,' the EIP said. 'To meet its increasing demand for electricity, Texas should be encouraging more clean energy instead of feeding public subsidies to dirty fossil fuels,' Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a statement. The plants spread across the state but cluster around Houston, the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio and the oilfields of West Texas. If all are built, they could produce as much pollution each year as another 27 million new cars and trucks — the equivalent of doubling Texas's current motor vehicle fleet, the report found. Oil and gas pollution includes volatile organic carcinogens such as benzene, asthma-triggering compounds including ozone and nitrogen oxides and lung-burrowing particles like PM 2.5. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state's environmental regulator, declined The Hill's request for comment on the analysis. The report comes in the wake of the failure of a slate bills at the Texas legislature that had sought to restrict the growth of renewables in favor of gas power — an issue that drove an acrimonious inter-party debate within the state's ruling GOP. One major reason for that failure: the state's insatiable demand for electricity, which the state's grid managers have estimated could double by the end of the decade, largely due to new cryptocurrency miners, data centers and oilfield operations. In the fight over the renewable restrictions, wind, solar and battery advocates pitched their technologies — which can be installed much faster than gas — as ideal to meet that demand. 'Everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, but there's no need to go big with gas plant pollution when there are cleaner alternatives,' said Adrian Shelley, the Texas director for civil society group Public Citizen. 'Texas is already number one in clean energy, which helps save the electric grid and reduce consumer costs, so we should rely on clean energy to increase our supply of electricity,' Shelley added. But with a 'frantic race' to build capacity amid long wait times to connect to the grid, data center developers are increasingly turning to a new wave of privately owned gas plants, according to reporting this week from The Texas Tribune. One such plant, outside the rapidly growing Central Texas town of New Braunfels, will generate about 1.2 gigawatts of power — about two-thirds as much generation capacity as is needed for the million-plus people of nearby Austin. But all that power will go entirely to data centers, the Tribune found. Despite the plants' size — some are large enough to power a medium-sized city — EIP contends that Texas regulators incorrectly classified three of them as belonging to a Clean Air Act category designed for minor sources of pollution. That would mean that the gas plants will not have to use the best available technology to clean their emissions, causing a greater release of health-harming chemicals.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Decades-old paper mill in Covington named nation's top climate polluter in new report
The Smurfit Westrock paper mill in Covington. (Photo by Tom Pelton/Environmental Integrity Project) A World War II-era boiler in Virginia is at the center of a growing debate over the paper industry's role in climate change — and how much pollution goes uncounted due to loopholes in federal reporting rules. The Smurfit Westrock paper mill in Covington, a 126-year-old facility located north of Roanoke, released more climate-warming pollution in 2023 than any other paper mill in the country, according to a sweeping new report by the Environmental Integrity Project. The watchdog group found that the facility reported emitting 970,084 metric tons of greenhouse gases last year — but in reality, it released more than 2.5 million tons. The discrepancy stems from an Environmental Protection Agency policy that allows facilities to omit emissions from the burning of wood and wood byproducts, known as 'biogenic' fuels. 'This plant is burning dirty fuels using a boiler built in 1940, and the pollution is hitting communities and the climate alike,' said Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project. 'Even in the digital age, we need paper products. But there is no reason a clean sheet of paper needs to be made with dirty fuels and antiquated methods.' The Smurfit Westrock press office did not to respond to an email seeking comment Monday. The report, titled 'A Paper Trail of Pollution,' paints a dire portrait of the U.S. pulp and paper industry. Over a six-month period, researchers reviewed thousands of public records and visited mills across the country, ultimately studying the 185 largest paper and pulp facilities in the United States. Their findings suggest that many of these plants are operating with outdated infrastructure, lax oversight and little accountability for their true environmental impact. Among the most striking revelations is that nearly three-quarters of the mills rely on outdated boilers, with an average age of 41 years. One of the oldest, built in 1928, remains in use at a mill in Longview, Washington. In contrast, experts recommend replacing industrial boilers after about 15 years. At more than 40% of the facilities studied, at least one boiler was a half-century old or older. The Covington mill, which employs several hundred people and is a fixture of the local economy, has long drawn criticism from nearby residents for the foul odors, soot and water pollution it produces. In 2023, it was the nation's top emitter of methane — a greenhouse gas more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period — releasing more than 214,000 metric tons. The mill also ranked third among U.S. paper facilities for hydrochloric acid emissions, releasing an estimated 170,000 pounds. The plant's impact extends beyond the air. State records document at least a dozen incidents over the past five years in which locals reported dark, cloudy, or contaminated discharges — including black liquor, a toxic wood-processing byproduct — flowing into the nearby Jackson River, a tributary of the James River, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. One complaint, filed in November 2022, warned of 'polluted water destroying the Upper James River fishery.' The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality dismissed the complaint. Victoria Higgins, Virginia director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said the Covington facility is a clear example of how outdated equipment and regulatory gaps are allowing the paper industry to skirt accountability. 'Pollution from industrial factories burning trees is an under-counted source of climate-warming pollution,' she said. 'In order to deliver on the promise of clean air and a stable climate in Virginia, we need to ensure facilities like the more than century-old Smurfit Westrock mill are moving to cleaner energy sources.' The American paper industry traces its roots to 1690, when the first mill opened in Germantown, Pennsylvania, using discarded cotton rags and waterwheels for power. By 1810, about 185 mills were operating across the country, but a shortage of rags pushed papermakers to experiment with alternative fibers like straw, bark and eventually wood. With the advent of mechanical wood grinders in the 19th century, wood pulp became the industry standard, and the U.S. quickly rose to become the world's top paper producer. That growth came at a cost — mill operations contributed to large-scale deforestation, including the cutting of tens of millions of acres of woodland in a single year by some companies. Today, the U.S. has more trees than it did 50 years ago, thanks in part to replanting efforts by the industry, which now plants over a billion trees annually. The modern paper sector is dominated by a few major corporations and concentrated in states like Wisconsin, Georgia, and Alabama. More than half of paper produced in the U.S. is now used for packaging and wrapping. Federal law currently allows the paper industry to exclude emissions from the combustion of biogenic materials — such as wood, wood chips, and black liquor — on the theory that trees will regrow and eventually recapture the carbon released during combustion. But environmental groups and scientists increasingly question that logic, particularly when emissions from burning these fuels are both large and immediate, while regrowth can take decades. Nationwide, the 185 mills studied reported a total of 33.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions to the EPA in 2023. But after factoring in emissions from biogenic fuels — which the EPA does not currently require mills to report — the Environmental Integrity Project estimates that the true number is closer to 115 million tons. That's more than three times the reported total. Other pollutants are also under-regulated. In 2020, the mills collectively released more than 46,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, a pollutant linked to heart and lung problems, including premature death. Many mills, including some of the worst offenders, lack basic pollution control devices such as scrubbers that can significantly reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. The latter chemical is responsible for the rotten egg-like smell associated with many mills, including the one in Covington, and can trigger nausea, headaches and respiratory issues. Hydrogen sulfide pollution is especially concentrated. In 2023, 90 of the mills reported emitting a combined total of eight million pounds of the chemical, with nearly half of that coming from just 12 plants. Six of the top 10 emitters of hydrogen sulfide across all industries last year were paper mills, the report said. The report also found that regulatory enforcement has been inconsistent and often toothless. A third of the 185 mills studied had an air pollution violation in the last three years. Over the past five years, 95 of them were subject to 267 enforcement actions, which resulted in just $7.4 million in total penalties — a modest sum for an industry with multibillion-dollar revenues. Beyond Virginia, the report includes case studies of plants in Washington and South Carolina, where local residents have filed thousands of odor complaints, voiced worries about health risks, and called on regulators to tighten enforcement. In Port Townsend, Washington, a mill has spent 12 consecutive quarters in violation of the Clean Air Act. In Catawba, South Carolina, residents have logged nearly 50,000 odor complaints since 2018 against a mill now owned by a private equity group led by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Duggan and her colleagues argue that the solution lies in modernization and tougher oversight. The report calls for pulp and paper mills to replace aging boilers with zero-emission industrial heat systems and shift toward cleaner energy sources. It also urges a greater commitment to using recycled paper over virgin wood, which requires more energy and water and generates significantly more emissions. According to the group, manufacturing a ton of cardboard from recycled materials requires half the energy, 32% less water, and produces just a quarter of the climate pollution. The study's authors also demand an end to the biogenic loophole in EPA reporting rules and warn that the issue could worsen if efforts to eliminate or weaken greenhouse gas reporting requirements under President Donald Trump's administration succeed. 'The American paper industry should modernize these plants to use cleaner and more efficient power systems and increase recycling to reduce climate pollution and protect the health of nearby communities,' Duggan said. 'And this industry should not be allowed to hide its climate pollution.' For residents of Covington and other communities living in the shadow of aging mills, the hope is that attention from this report will bring pressure for long-overdue reforms — before the paper trail of pollution grows any longer. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
