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Alpenglow Timbers outlines Hobart Mills sawmill and CLT production plans; CEQA cleared and federal funding freeze noted
Summary
David Mercer presented Alpenglow Timbers' plan for a small, local sawmill and cross-laminated timber (CLT) production on about 130 acres north of Truckee at Hobart Mills; he said the project passed use-permit review and CEQA and is in permitting, but federal funding freezes affect supply from national forests.
David Mercer, founder of Alpenglow Timbers, described a locally oriented timber-processing project north of Truckee at Hobart Mills during the Feb. 18 Good Morning Truckee meeting. Alpenglow aims to process low-grade, small-diameter local wood into cross-laminated timber (CLT) and other engineered wood products and to operate a small sawmill and worker housing on roughly 130 acres near Klondike Flat.
Mercer said the proposal has advanced through county land-use review: the project received a use permit and completed the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review; Mercer said the project is now in permitting stages for building, air and water.
Project details Mercer provided - Location and parcel: roughly 130 acres north of Truckee at Hobart Mills/Klondike Flat. Mercer said the historic Hobart Mills site previously hosted a sawmill through the 1940s. - Facilities: a mill building and log storage yard positioned to minimize impacts on neighbors, employee housing on site, paved road access that neighbors can use, a 200,000-gallon water tank for fire suppression and a fire hydrant for nearby residences. - Permits and documents: Mercer said the project has completed CEQA and received a use permit and that the CEQA administrative record (Nevada County filing) is available on the county website (he said the administrative record is “quite thick, it’s like 800 pages”). - CLT manufacture timeline: Mercer said CLT manufacturing equipment is being built in Europe; machine delivery/manufacturing lead time is about 18 months once ordered. He estimated CLT production could start in roughly two years if other permitting proceeds on schedule.
Constraints and risks Mercer said a key near-term constraint is a federal funding freeze that has affected contracts and crew work on federal forest lands: “All the federal funding is frozen right now. So right now, the Forest Service can’t hire any crews to mark trees or put out contracts or do any of the things that allow us to go into the federal forest. Our federal grants are frozen, and our federal loan guarantees are currently frozen.” He said that condition limits available timber from national forests and slows thinning work that supplies the mill.
Mercer also addressed questions about legal challenges. He said opponents appealed the project from the planning commission to the county board of supervisors, but he explicitly stated that no lawsuit had been filed against the project.
What Mercer said next steps would be: obtaining remaining state and county permits, building the facility and starting operations as permitted. He invited questions and said scheduling depended on permitting and machine manufacturing timelines.
