By John Roach Boise Cascade decided to cancel plans for a timber plant in Puerto Montt, Chile. The seaside port is rich with salmon farms, an industry that has boomed in Chile over the past decade thanks, in part, to the region s pristine waters.
Chile is currently the world s second largest producer and exporter of salmon.
Environmentalists argued that the project would increase logging of the region s native forests by 27 percent. Salmon farmers said pollution from the project would devastate their business. Tourism officials said that the region s natural beauty supplied many more jobs than the 200 that the mill would generate. To the joy of environmentalists and salmon farmers, the company concluded the mill would be a money loser. Given the expectation of an additional 7.4 billion square feet of OSB capacity planned industry-wide in North America and severely depressed product prices at this time, our plans for the project have been canceled, a statement on Boise Cascade s web site notes.