Reducing the risk of wild fire devastation in the Sierra Nevada is a daunting and multi-faceted task. Much of the effort is focused on reducing fuel load in the forest so that fires that do flare up don’t turn into catastrophes like the Caldor Fire of 2021. One sticking point in this effort for the Tahoe region has been the lack of a nearby sawmill.
The further away a sawmill is from the logs, the more expensive they are to transport, which can make necessary tree thinning operations prohibitively expensive. Good news on this front happened several years ago when a partnership between the Washoe Development Corporation (WDC), the business enterprise arm of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, and Tahoe Forest Products, led to a working sawmill near where Highways 50 and 395 meet in Carson City.
The Tahoe Forest Products sawmill was up and running in just 20 months. It began turning trees into lumber in May 2024.
The partnership was put together with help from The Tahoe Fund, a non-profit organization which provides funding for environmental and recreational projects around Lake Tahoe. The fund has a major emphasis on improving forest health and Amy Berry, Tahoe Fund CEO, was aware of the negative impact caused by the lack of sawmills.
Kevin Leary, CEO of Hallador, an investment company, approached the Tahoe Fund four years ago to see if they could help find a site for a sawmill in the region. Leary saw it as both an opportunity for a profitable investment, and a chance to do something good for the community. “Mega fire was not a thing when I was a kid in Tahoe. With these mega fires there is a public awareness now to clean up the forest. This is a market oriented solution to the problem,” said Leary.
Finding a spot for a sawmill is not an easy task. “We looked at a dozen sites. You need 40 plus acres, lots of water, access to power, a nearby skilled labor pool, and a resource base nearby,” said Leary. It’s hard to make all those things work out, and then once you find a usable site, you have to get the proposal through a maze of regulatory bodies and get past potential objections from the neighbors. “We almost gave up,” he said.
But then, Berry went out to lunch with Wendy Loomis, President of the Washoe Development Corporation. Berry told Loomis that Leary was looking for a good site for a sawmill.
The Washoe Development Corporation provides development opportunities to improve the economic situation for the 1,300 members of the tribe who live primarily in the Washoe Valley. The WDC operates a variety of developments, including a plaza truck stop in Gardnerville, a gas station, smoke shop and storage buildings in Carson City, and the Meeks Bay Campground at Lake Tahoe. The WDC had a parcel of land they felt would suit Leary’s Tahoe Forest Products well.
Berry told Loomis, “You really need to talk to Forest Products.” And she did. They began working with Kevin and his team, they signed a lease in just six months, working through an environmental impact study and cultural studies. “We don’t have as much red tape on native lands,” said Loomis.
Loomis said the Washoe Development Corporation has three main goals with projects. “It can’t harm mother earth, it must create workforce development, and it must provide income for the tribe.” She found that this project enhances and creates a healthy forest, as well as provide jobs and money to the tribe, so it met all three criteria. She also found it to be a plus that the area the lumber will be harvested from was originally Washoe land, and that the Washoe always believed in being stewards for the forest.
Leary says while logs are being milled and turned into rough green sawmill lumber now, they are still ramping up the size and sophistication of the facility and making sure they have a viable supply of logs. They processed 3 to 4 million board feet of lumber this summer and have 20 million board feet on the ground. At full production that is enough for just six months.
Leary said one primary goal for the sawmill would be to provide wood primarily for the local market. One approach to reach that goal is to meet with local architects and builders. “Trying to get them to specify local species in their projects. They are used to specifying Douglas fir, but here we have red and white firs and pines,” said Leary. He feels that if we can get the architects and contractors to use our local products, it could save them money on transportation and is better for the environment.
