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THEISSUES
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Rich Donnell Editor-in-Chief
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ou may be aware of our affiliate magazine, Panel World, which covers the structural and non-structural wood panel industries in a similar way that Timber Processing covers the lumber industry. Recently in Panel World we ran a news article on Huber Engineered Woods pulling out of a long-planned project to build a $440 million oriented strandboard (OSB) plant in Cohasset, Minn., which would have been Huber’s sixth OSB plant following ongoing operations in Maine, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma. But this time Huber ran into the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, which collaborated with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) to cause Huber to back off the project. MCEA, in looking at its web site and personnel roster, is all about finding “environmental justice” through the courts in representation of various clients, such as Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, whose land base is the Leech Lake Reservation in north-central Minnesota. The tribe operates three nearby gaming casinos and owns two gas express and food stations. Though it’s a panel mill project, paying close attention to its developments and roadblocks may prove enlightening to sawmillers looking to build a plant down the road. Huber, which first announced it wanted to build the plant in June 2021, bowed out in response to a Minnesota Court of Appeals decision in early February that would have caused further delay in the construction of the operation, which would have created 150 direct jobs and positively impacted hundreds of others in logging, trucking, supplies and numerous retail sectors. But in the ruling on an appeal from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (whose reservation is due west) and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, the court of appeals said the Cohasset city planners’ earlier decision to only require an Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) of the project, and not require a more detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), needed to be readdressed by the city because of issues involving 10 acres of two “public waters wetlands” that the court said state law would require an EIS for. (The state of Minnesota requires a “responsible governmental unit,” such as a city planning body, to determine if a project requires an EAW or EIS, or both.) Huber had initially submitted an EAW and then, at the city’s request—including providing more information about the health of Minnesota’s forests and their ability to sustainably supply the facility, and providing more detail on the project’s carbon footprint and the carbon sequestration effects of the finished wood products—re-submitted the EAW, which the city accepted while deciding an EIS wasn’t necessary. Leech Lake Band appealed, and the appeals court agreed that the facility “falls into categories” for which an EIS is mandatory under Minnesota law, specifically as to the “elimination” of public waters wetland. The court noted that the state’s definition of public waters wetlands is 10 or more acres in size in unincorporated areas and at least two and a half or more acres in incorporated areas. Huber’s EAW explained that its project would involve filling portions of two public waters wetlands, both in incorporated areas: 8.73 of 14.27 acres in one and 1.65 of 5.67 in another, and that while there would be a reduction in the size of each, it wouldn’t “eliminate” the public waters in question. The city agreed and noted that the partially filled public water wetlands would not fall below the 2.5 acre threshold after the partial filling. ➤ Continued on 62 Contact Rich Donnell, ph: 334-834-1170; fax 334-834-4525; e-mail: rich@hattonbrown.com TIMBER PROCESSING ■ MARCH 2023 ■ 5
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