Developers address noise, water and other concerns with new sawmill south of Carson City

On Tuesday, Tahoe Forest Products held a community meeting in Indian Hills regarding the construction of a sawmill on Washoe tribal land behind Topsy Lane south of Carson City.

The site of the sawmill, according to developers, is being built on the site of the historic Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company, which began during the time of the Comstock Lode discovery.

As of Tuesday, more than 600 loads of lumber have been deposited at the site from Sierra-at-Tahoe ski area, which is required to remove 20 million feet of dead trees in order to open for recreation.

However, the saw mill itself will not be built and in operation until next spring to summer. While some information at first stated that the lease would last four years, this information was incorrect, as the lease is long term and the mill will be in operation for, potentially decades.

One of the meeting hosts, Kevin Leary, apologized for the lack of communication thus far.

“I should acknowledge that the communication of the last six weeks were not as timely as they should have been,” said Leary. “We didn’t finalize the deal with the tribe until July, which created a delay in the entire information sharing process, for which I apologize.”

The need for the sawmill is a direct result of forest mismanagement over the previous decades, along with a warming climate causing increasingly dangerous fire conditions in the western forests of the U.S., said meeting host John Shinn.

“As an industry, we thumbed our nose at the public and the public got mad and got active in stopping forest management, with considerable success,” said Shinn.

In recent decades, 272 sawmills have gone out of business, said Shinn, with “considerable negative effects.”

Those negative effects are increasingly dense forests with decreasing water amounts, causing mass die off and drying of our forests, said Shinn.

“The forests are far denser than they were before we all came,” said Shinn. “In photos from the 1850s, the forests were open, mostly pine, without a lot of branches near the ground. This was partly due to lightning fires, but also because Native Americans set fires at the right time of year, which was done very safely, hurt nothing, and couldn’t get up into the crowns. Now, as we’ve seen in recent fires, fire gets immediately into the crowns.”

Shinn stated that, while in the preceding decades tree cutting and sawmills were “considered verboten,” both the public and the government have now began to recognize the need for an increase of forest management.

“These are explosive fires that have never been seen before,” said Shinn. “We’ve become to the point now where people recognize there needs to be a realistic answer to make fire safe.”

Developers stated they had looked at 7 properties before settling on the current location for the mill, including one other on tribal property.

However, due to non-tribal land regulations — whether county, state, or federal — the earliest a saw mill could potentially be approved, let alone opened, could take upward of two years, said the developers.

While most residents at the meeting stated they agreed that something needed to be done, they did not agree with the location of the mill.

"We can support the initiative, it's the location that is a challenge," said one resident.

However, the mill is placed on Washoe Tribal property, which, as a sovereign nation, legally does not need to answer to the either Douglas County or Carson City regarding permitting.

Questions from the public ranged from concerns over noise, pollution, water usage, and more.

Developers answered each question from the audience, which lasted nearly two hours.

For noise, developers stated they would be enclosing portions of the mill with insulated buildings, and for those that cannot be inside, would be positioned behind lumber “decks,” which is the term used for the walls created by stacked logs reaching heights of approximately 25-30 feet.

However, the developers stated they would look into positioning portions of the mill in different areas on the site at the request of the audience.

For water, developers intend to dig a well on site, as well as constructing a retaining pond in order to recycle as much water as possible for usage on site. In order to keep lumber viable, the “decks” must be sprayed down with water to keep them from drying out.

When asked if they could tap into city water instead, they said they would be looking into that as well. Several surrounding residents stated they have wells that they use for their homes, and they are not allowed to dig them any deeper. If the saw mill is able to go lower, they worry they will deplete the water for nearby residents.

“The tribe has 100 percent rights to that water,” said Shinn. “One of the reasons we are positioning it where we are, is we are trying to locate it in a way that does not infringe on anyone else’s water.”

When asked if an Environmental Review had been completed, Leary stated it had; however, he said that those documents are not public, but there were 400-500 pages worth of research done.

Many complained that what they were looking for was more transparency from developers.

“Transparency is very important to me,” said one resident. “Nobody has been transparent here.”

However, the developers stated that, as a tenant for the land but not the owners of the land, many questions would need to be answered by the tribe itself.

The project, while on tribal land, will need to adhere to EPA air and water quality regulations, which the developers stated they were prepared for.

Questions on employment safety and wages were also discussed.

As far as wage base goes, developers stated that the lowest wage would start at $25 per hour, with up to $40 per hour for certain positions. All positions would also come with benefits.

They also stated they were looking into initiating a safety bonus program which had worked well at previous saw mills Shinn had overseen.

Residents stated concerns regarding traffic and noise from trucks; however, developers stated that there had already been over 600 loads delivered to the site without issue.

Some residents stated that the water trucks were beginning work as early as 4 a.m., waking residents up from the noise. Developers stated they would handle it, and work should not begin until 5:30 or 6 a.m. They also discussed the potentiality of watering at night instead of the morning.

Developers also stated they were interested in receiving organized collective feedback from residents, and encouraged them to create a neighbor committee that could advise the project on ways the saw mill could be a good neighbor, including suggestions on landscaping barriers.

At the end of the day, Shinn stated that what was most important was the health of the forests, and without a saw mill and forest management, fire dangers would only continue to increase and effect local communities.

“Ideally, there should be about 20 to 30 percent of wood on the ground as there is now,” said Shinn. “Those trees will have a chance to become big trees instead of dying. If you have a lot of trees dying, you’ll have a very serious fire hazard, as we’ve seen. There’s not enough water (to support current numbers) — it becomes a tinder box.”

Shinn stated he was happily retired, but was brought out of retirement for the sake of the forests.

“We decided, we needed to get serious,” said Shinn. “There’s no sawmill anywhere in the region. If you thin the forest, you’ve got to go a hundred miles to get to a sawmill, it’s uneconomical. The only solution is to have a sawmill nearby. There’s so much interest in protecting the basin — its a valuable asset to all of us.”

Developers will host another project overview for the public on Aug. 30 from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Red Barn at the corner of Highway 395 and South Sunridge.

Visit https://tahoeforestproducts.com to learn more about the project, and to stay up-to-date on developments.