JACKSON, Miss.—On the morning of Oct. 14, Carmella Causey exited a coach bus in downtown Jackson and slowly made her way across the street toward the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality building.
The Gloster, Mississippi, resident uses a walking aid and a portable oxygen machine to help her breathe, but she was determined to make the nearly two-hour journey to the capital city. Over the next two days, state regulators would decide whether to authorize new permits for a controversial biomass facility in her hometown, and Causey was intent on testifying against the plant and its operators.
“I’m feeling victorious,” Causey told the Mississippi Free Press on her walk over to the MDEQ office. She blames emissions from the plant for her respiratory problems, and she expressed hope that the state would protect her and her neighbors by rejecting the requested permits.
That feeling of optimism was short-lived. The following afternoon, Mississippi’s Environmental Quality Permit Board unanimously approved biomass producer Drax’s bid to increase emissions at the Gloster plant, reversing an earlier decision that Causey and others had celebrated as a win for environmental justice…