{"id":88686,"date":"2021-12-15T17:34:28","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T17:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=88686"},"modified":"2021-12-15T17:34:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T17:34:32","slug":"controversial-wood-pellet-plant-in-sampson-county-spurs-debate-over-environmental-injustice-economic-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=88686","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Controversial wood pellet plant in Sampson County spurs debate over environmental injustice, economic benefits&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wunc.org\/environment\/2021-12-14\/controversial-wood-pellet-plant-in-sampson-county-spurs-debate-over-environmental-injustice-economic-benefits\" target=\"_blank\">WUNC<\/a>: &#8220;It seems as though the community is evenly split. Half agree with Altmon and Herring: the wood pellet plant is bothersome and negatively impacts their livelihood. The other half agree more with Mincy: the facility is great for the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Environmental advocates&nbsp;are concerned the wood pellet plant will have a long-term negative impact on the overall&nbsp;well-being of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI believe that even though there may be some economic benefit, that the detriments that occur are much worse than the alleged economic benefit that comes with these industries being here,\u201d said Sherri White-Williamson, the environmental justice policy director with the North Carolina Conservation Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She points out that Sampson County is also home to industrial hog farms and the state\u2019s largest landfill, so to her, Enviva\u2019s presence just exacerbates the issues this community is already facing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI would say the situation is very urgent at this point, because we have become an extractive county and extractive country,\u201d White-Williamson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She alleges that Enviva is decreasing resiliency and contributing to deforestation by cutting down trees to produce wood pellets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSampson County is in the path of most storms. [Enviva is] reducing the ability of communities to protect themselves from flooding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Enviva strongly refutes that claim. The company says its wood pellets\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.envivabiomass.com\/sustainability\/responsible-sourcing\/responsible-sourcing-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\">come from low-value wood fiber<\/a>, mill residues, tree limbs, and trees cut during forest thinnings. Additionally, Enviva says it works with its suppliers to make sure that trees are regenerated.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WUNC: &#8220;It seems as though the community is evenly split. Half agree with Altmon and Herring: the wood pellet plant is bothersome and negatively impacts their livelihood. The other half agree more with Mincy: the facility is great for the economy. Environmental advocates&nbsp;are concerned the wood pellet plant will have a long-term negative impact on&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88687,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88686\/revisions\/88687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}