The Great Drax Caper

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If you live in Leola, Bearden, or Russellville, you are at risk

Last Thursday, the “breaking news” was about the Drax Arkansas satellite wood pellet mills. The press release spread like wildfire, but the truth has not been told. The Drax deception is a disturbing story of pollution, COVID-19 mortality, and climate change denial.

Drax is not building pellet mills. Drax is creating pollution centers, with pellet mills adjacent to the largest sawmills in the state, using the residual sawdust to make pellets.

The Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC) welcomed Drax with open arms.

“By building these new pellet plants Drax is bringing jobs and opportunities to rural communities in Arkansas, boosting the state’s post-COVID economic recovery,” Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said.

“Through this investment, Arkansas will play an important role in combating climate change, supporting Drax to increase the amount of sustainable biomass we produce as part of our plans to pioneer bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. By using sustainable biomass, we have displaced coal-fired power generation, reduced carbon emissions, and provided renewable electricity for millions of homes and businesses in the UK,” according to the AEDC report.

PM-2.5 is the smoking gun

Clean air is mostly oxygen, nitrogen, plus a small percent of carbon dioxide. Anything else in the air, harmful to humans and wildlife as they breathe, are air pollutants.

Invisible particles measuring less than 10 microns in diameter, and smaller particulates measuring less than 2.5 microns, are called PM-2.5 particulate matter. The coronavirus is 25 times smaller than PM-2.5 and travels long distances riding on particulates.

30 jobs for 30,000 deaths

The Drax pellet mills promise a total of 30 jobs, but there will be increased PM-2.5 air pollution at three different sites. Logging trucks, sawmills and sawdust, and wood-fiber pellet mills will create over 40 years of exposure to PM-2.5. This will be deadly for minorities, spreading the global pandemic as new variants appear. 30,000 deaths are a reasonable estimate.

Social equity, public health, and human dignity are non-negotiable values. Drax pellet mills reward environmental injustice and racist behavior.

Air pollution is not a $40 million investment

AEDC says Drax will invest $40 million in Arkansas. Investors and investments are financial concepts to create profits and wealth, along with losses and despair.

Economic development is about long-term benefits for all the people of the state, creating opportunities for housing, health, education, safety, peace, and full-time employment.

Drax climate crimes

Drax has eliminated coal while increasing carbon dioxide emissions and PM-2.5 air pollution. Drax is an international source of pollution, not a climate solution.

Burning trees today is an unnatural act. Forests are nature’s best, growing from the air when no one is looking, defenseless against the human virus.

Drax has failed every attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Drax has wasted billions of dollars shipping and storing flammable wood pellets and as long as the subsidies keep coming, Drax will keep burning US and Canadian forests.

Drax knows the power of lies

Drax used the name “Arkansas BioEnergy” with the help of the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality to get air permits. DEQ ignored the repeated Drax Biomass violations and million-dollar fines in Mississippi and Louisiana. DEQ hid the PM-2.5 emissions from the sawmills and hid the one-day public notice on a limited digital access newspaper, without requiring public notices posted by Arkansas BioEnergy.

The unconditional endorsement of Drax’s false climate change solution by Gov. Hutchinson and AEDC’s report repeating the unproven and impossible claims made by Drax’s CEO Will Gardiner is worth more than the $40 million cost of the mills. The UK taxpayer’s subsidies for Drax, $2 billion in 2020 alone, are fifty times the cost of the mills!

Help stop Drax and protect the future

The Arkansas BioEnergy air permits granted by DEQ are invalid. The DEQ Air Quality Division discarded and concealed the PM-2.5 epidemiological study submitted with my October 7, 2020, public comment.

Please send a respectful email asking the commission why the PM-2.5 report was discarded and ask them to revoke the invalid air permits. APC&ECommissionStaff@adeq.state.ar.us.

Dr. Luis Contreras

2 COMMENTS

  1. Drax knows PM-2.5 increases COVID-19 mortality

    May 2020 – Growing evidence of a link between air pollution and the impact of coronavirus means the government has a legal obligation to urgently review its air quality strategy, according to lawyers.

    In a letter to ministers, the lawyers argue that refusing to order a review would breach UK law, the precautionary principle and the European convention on human rights.

    Dirty air is estimated to cause 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK, and evidence is mounting that it is linked to increased Covid-19 infection rates and death rates.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/16/coronavirus-uk-has-legal-duty-to-review-air-pollution-targets-say-lawyers

  2. Several people have asked the Arkansas Pollution Control & Ecology Commission why the PM-2.5 study was discarded

    The Commission says they don’t know how the Division of Environmental Quality, Air Division did with the study, so please include the following people on your comments. The Commission has the power to revoke the Air permits or re-open the appeal opposing the permits. There are other agencies that have power over the Commission, the Circuit Court and the Court of Appeals, and in the end EPA is in charge of the Clean Air Act and they can over-ride what Arkansas decides.

    It would be easier just to have Thomas Rheaume look in the trash, but only he knows what to do.

    In the end, Drax will take the $20 Million worth of equipment that was ordered in advance, at the beginning of the pandemic, and ship it back to the UK. They can sell it or write it off as “cost of doing business”

    Here are the relevant email addresses:
    APC&ECommissionStaff@adeq.state.ar.us
    montgomery@adeq.state.ar.us
    rheaume@adeq.state.ar.us
    press@governor.arkansas.gov

    Thank you!

Comments are closed.