Click here to read the exclusive in The Sunday Times.
A US senator has criticised the “brazen disregard of laws” and “toxic pollution” in the UK’s biomass supply chain, after state regulators found Drax had violated environmental laws more than 6,000 times in Louisiana.
The new violations were uncovered by Land and Climate Review and revealed in The Sunday Times. They follow more than 11,000 previously identified breaches at Drax’s wood pellet mills in the US, and include excess discharges of toxic air pollutants, failure to monitor or test emissions regularly, and contamination of waterways.
Drax is one of the world’s largest biomass companies, and it owns the UK’s largest power plant, which burns wood pellets produced at the company’s five mills across Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Drax also owns two mills in Arkansas, but operations ceased in November 2025.
Legal paperwork prepared by the Louisiana Department for Environmental Quality (LDEQ) indicates that Drax violated Clean Air and Water regulations at least 6,714 times at its two Louisiana mills between 2019 and 2024. Combined with the 11,378 breaches previously identified by Land and Climate Review, the total figure of environmental violations by Drax in the US reaches 18,092.
Most of the newly reported incidents – at least 6,659 – occured at Drax’s Morehouse BioEnergy facility in Bastrop, northeast Louisiana, suggesting environmental regulations were breached more than 3 times a day, on average.
“Brazen disregard of laws that are designed to protect our communities from toxic pollution cannot be tolerated,” said US Senator for Maryland Chris Van Hollen.
“Any company with such a poor record of legal compliance must be held accountable to the fullest extent possible. But as the Trump administration works to gut the EPA, our ability to do so is coming under threat,” he added.
In 2024, Senator Van Hollen was responsible for introducing the Forest Biomass Emissions Act to the US Congress alongside fellow Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. The bill sought to address the impact of wood pellet mills on the environment and public health.
According to its most recent annual report, Drax’s pellet production business saw 61% growth in 2024, leading to adjusted earnings before tax of £143m. Drax Group’s total operating profit in 2024 was £840m (approx $1.2bn).
The majority of the new violations relate to the same class of offences as those previously uncovered by Land and Climate Review, indicating Drax’s compliance has not improved despite the company being fined more than $6.1m since 2019.
“This is a serial polluter that has a history of widespread non-compliance and violations that really pose a risk to public health and the environment,” said Jen Duggan, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based NGO.
“These are documented problems, they’ve had plenty of opportunity to install pollution controls and operate in a safe manner that is compliant with the Clean Air Act and they’re choosing not to do that,” she said.
According to Louisiana’s environmental department, Drax could face a fine of over $200m for the violations at its Morehouse plant. The maximum fine the department has issued Drax for previous violations was $1.6m.
Attorneys are urging the state of Louisiana to take more punitive action this time: “Clearly, that $1.6m penalty for the last round of violations was not sufficient to deter illegal activity going forward,” said Duggan. “It likely was just a slap on the wrist for the company, the cost of doing business.”
Rebecca Ramirez, an Associate Attorney at Earthjustice, said “the purpose of these civil penalties is to deter further non-compliance. In order to ensure that companies follow the law, they should be enforced and repeat offenders like Drax should be penalised more. I hope that LDEQ uses the law to the full extent so that it serves its purpose.”
News of the violations comes as attorneys are preparing a mass action lawsuit against Drax for “significant, repeated and ongoing violations of the Clean Air Act” at another of its wood pellet mills in Gloster, Mississippi.
“Drax’s actions are shocking in the level of impact they’re having on this community,” said Shani Anderson, an associate attorney at Singleton Schreiber who is working on the lawsuit.
The case is being brought on behalf of Gloster residents to “hold Drax accountable for their reckless environmental practices and make certain that the people who’ve endured this for way too long – this level of pollution, this encumbrance on their lifestyles – are able to be compensated,” Anderson said.
In April 2025 Gloster residents enjoyed a small victory when the Mississippi environmental department denied Drax a permit that would have increased air pollution limits at the pellet mill. However, in October the permitting body reversed course, approving the permit and enabling Drax to increase the quantities of pollutants it emits at the site after all.
At least 3,970 of the violations at Drax’s Louisiana mills relate to excess or uncontrolled emissions of dangerous pollutants, including particulate matter, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds. Some of these substances are carcinogenic, while others can cause serious respiratory problems.
In October last year, a joint investigation between Land and Climate Review and the Guardian revealed that ten lawsuits had been filed against Drax by current and former workers at its power station in Selby, north Yorkshire. The workers claimed they had suffered health conditions as a result of insufficient protection from sustained exposure to wood dust.
In its 2024 annual report, Drax failed to mention it is in ongoing legal disputes with Louisiana’s state environmental department over more than 15,000 environmental violations. The report mentions that Drax settled a Notice of Violation at its Mississippi plant in September 2024, but does not mention that the company has also entered into dispute resolution discussions with state regulators in Louisiana over two compliance orders – one issued in January 2025 relating to 6,659 violations and one in January 2024 relating to 9,054 violations.
Drax is currently under investigation by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, relating to the compliance of Drax’s 2021, 2022 and 2023 Annual Reports with the Listing Rules and Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.
Drax’s business is financially reliant on subsidies from UK billpayers. In November last year, Drax signed a new contract with the government which will see these subsidies extended through to March 2031.
Documents submitted by Drax to LDEQ suggest compliance issues at its Louisiana mills are ongoing. In addition to the 18,000 violations, Drax recorded more than 8,700 ‘deviations’ from its air permit rules between January and June 2024. If deemed serious enough, these could also be classed by LDEQ as violations, following file reviews.
“I would be surprised if any company would just disregard their permit limits like that and not try to comply with the law, but it seems to be a pattern that we’re seeing from Drax,” said Ramirez.
A Drax spokesperson told Land and Climate Review that safety is paramount for the company, stating that Drax had not breached any conditions of its permits since December 2023. They also disputed the number of violations we report, saying that the violations listed by the state authorities were likely to be downgraded to less serious ‘deviations’, which are part of normal operations and usually stem from administrative matters not related to emissions.
They added that the company was responding to the Louisiana environmental department’s findings and that the violations listed by the state authority are likely to be treated as within permit limits after the conclusion of investigations.
In several instances where Drax has paid fines over environmental breaches in the past, the company reached settlement agreements with state regulators without an admission of liability.
“Drax has invested over $130m in our North American pellet plants, including fitting technologies which reduce their environmental impact. We are also in discussions with relevant agencies about updating the permits of our sites to ensure they continue to operate compliantly,” the Drax spokesperson said.
Appendix
The complete list of environmental violations can be found below.
Camille Corcoran is a freelance investigative journalist working in France and the UK. She has published stories with outlets including The Guardian, The Observer, The Times and Sunday Times, and The Independent.
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