Environmental advocates are raising concerns about the boom of wood pellet processing facilities in Alabama and the southeast, saying that the facilities can cause serious harm to the environment.

That concern does not appear to be shared by state officials, however. The wood pellets are used as a renewable fuel source in Europe and Asia, and according to Alabama Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield, since 2019 there have been at least four new wood pellet manufacturing facility investments in the state, bringing between 168-200 jobs and $380 million in new investment. Three of those facilities are in rural counties, he says.

“This has been an important part of our rural growth strategy, to attract new investment and jobs into areas of our state that have traditionally suffered from low job growth opportunities,” Canfield said in an email. “This sector also represents significant export volume for Alabama as most of the wood pellet production is shipped to Europe for use as heating fuel.”

Last month, the Mobile Chamber announced that CM Biomass and CORE Industries would construct a new processing and storage facility for wood pellets at CORE Industries’ site on the Theodore Industrial Canal. Earlier this summer, Enviva, the largest wood pellet producer in the world, broke ground on a new wood pellet facility in Sumter County, which will be its largest facility to date when completed.

But environmentalists say that, not only are the wood biomass fuel industry’s claims that the product is “renewable” suspect, but the facilities also produce significant air pollution, which harms the communities the plants are built in.