Cuesta students and community members attended a short film called “The Breath of Gloster” on May 9.

The SLO County Public Libraries sponsored this event at Cuesta as part of the Outside Together Project. The film features the story of a trail run organized by two women activists, Krystal Martin and Patagonia-sponsored trail runner Peyton Thomas, who has a PhD in fish physiology and is also an academic researcher, to call attention to the plight of the residents of the town of Gloster and to environmental injustice worldwide.

The film centers on Krystal Martin, a town resident and activist, former educator, and founder of the Greater Greener Gloster Project, and her fight against the multi-billion-dollar company Drax.

Gloster is a small, predominantly Black town in Mississippi covering only about two square miles with no stoplights. It has a population of approximately 800 residents and a wood biomass plant, Drax Amite, in the center of the town.

Drax was fined $2.5 million for exceeding its volatile organic compound emissions limits. The plant emitted three times the allowable VOCs and other pollutants. The plant was issued one of the biggest fines in state history in 2020 by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) for air emissions violations at its Gloster plant. The plant broke environmental rules more than 11,000 times. 

Martin arrived, fresh from a journey to England, where she was invited to speak about the problems with biomass wood pellets and environmental injustice. Drax was also fined 25 million pounds, or $34,000,000, for inaccurate data reporting in the UK. Despite all the fines, this multibillion-dollar corporation received a permit to pollute even more of the air in Gloster on Oct. 15, 2025.

Martin said that many residents of Gloster, including her mother and several family members, are suffering from respiratory illnesses, including lung cancer and rampant occurrences of asthma in youth. “They are literally fighting for their lives,” Martin said. At one point, she paused to regain her composure after being emotionally overcome by recounting the death of one of the town’s residents from a respiratory disease. Later, she shared the joy felt by the community members who participated in the trail run. 

Despite her tears, she is a cheerful warrior for the people in her town and against environmental injustice in poor communities of color. Thomas and Martin plan to continue their fight to call attention to the plight of Gloster and are seeking political, media and financial support. 

Also present were local community members, youth mental health clinician Jene Hinton-Railsback, environmental educator Celeste Roye, NAACP’s past president and current communications chairperson Tobin Johnson, SLO Climate Coalition’s Eric Veium and Cal Poly Kinesiology Lecturer Nicole Hagobian. They participated in a lively discussion following the film’s presentation.