Although a handful of issues were recently raised at last week’s meeting of the Lumberton Board of Aldermen regarding the Idaho Forest Group’s sawmill in Lumberton – including noise matters and the alleged lack of certain services to nearby residents – the majority of board members found, in their opinion, no merit to the claims.
The matters were addressed at the meeting by Ward 4 Alderman Bobby Smith, who said a few of the residents from the Love Addition neighborhood – which is located off of Martin Luther King Drive – had approached him about noise emanating from the mill during nighttime hours. However, Mayor Quincy Rogers said he recently met with officials from IFG, who said they were not aware of any noise complaints.
“I wasn’t aware of that (either),” Rogers said. “Obviously, (IFG officials) watch the (meeting) footage from Facebook … and as far as I am concerned, there are no issues with IFG.”
Because of the alleged noise, the agenda item allowed board members to discuss with the city attorney the possibility of constructing a noise reduction buffer between the mill and the residents of Love Addition. Rogers said that measure will not be necessary, as a buffer already exists in that location to prevent any possible noise pollution.
“That was put up prior to the mill being built,” he said. “When they were doing dirt work for the mill, I witnessed (the construction of) that noise reduction buffer.
“There was also an environmental study that was talked about (at the board meeting), and that study was also done prior to the construction of the lumber mill.”
Another item on the agenda addressed the lack of phone, cable, or Internet services, allegedly because of the mill using the major portion of the city’s available bandwidth for those services. Again, Rogers said there was no basis for that allegation, as those issues have persisted since long before the sawmill was built.
“It was said that it was because of the sawmill, but that isn’t so,” Rogers said. “The whole city has been running slow for years; the whole city has been dealing with slow Internet service, and the mill has nothing to do with that.
“Even here at my home, we deal with poor connection, and that’s through AT&T – the IFG mill has nothing to do with that. That’s poor service provided by AT&T, and not the lumber mill. That’s been happening for years.”
The sawmill, which is located along Old Highway 11 east of town, was announced at a news conference on December 14, 2020, at the Ben Barrett Community Center on East Main Avenue in Lumberton.
Originally, the sawmill was estimated at $120 million with 130 new jobs, but those numbers have since been updated to more than $200 million with more than 150 new jobs.
The facility produces a variety of wood products, and its mill supervisors, information technology and human resource staff, engineers, technicians, and operators are all recruited from the local area.
“Not only is it going to be an impact for Lumberton; it’s going to be an impact for the region,” said Warren Byrd, who serves as the president for the Lamar County Board of Supervisors, at an April 2022 State of the Region event. “This is going to be huge for all our counties.”
Idaho Forest Group operates six sawmills and a finger-joint plant at locations in Idaho and Montana, and employs more than 1,100 team members. The company produces more than 1.2 billion board feet of lumber each year.
