Spokane-based Potlatch Corporation knows its responsibilities. Founded in 1903, Potlatch is a diversified forest products company with timberlands in Idaho, Arkansas and Minnesota totaling about 1.5 million acres. Its manufacturing businesses produce lumber and wood panels for residential and business construction, paperboard for packaging, and consumer tissue goods. Responsible management of the environmental impact of its manufacturing operations and sustainable forest practices are expected by Potlatch’s customers and shareholders. Nurturing an environmental ethic is a source of pride for Potlatch employees.

"Our success, like most businesses, depends a lot on market forces and competition," says Ralph Davisson, Vice President and General Counsel. "But we also believe that success requires an environmental ethic that has to be upheld by all of our employees and advisors."

For more than a decade, Stoel Rives has provided day-to-day environmental compliance counseling for Potlatch’s multiple Idaho wood products facilities as well as for its kraft pulp mill, the only mill of its kind in the state. The Stoel Rives legal team serving Potlatch includes two former EPA lawyers and a former Idaho assistant attorney general. One of them, Krista McIntyre, acts as Potlatch’s interim in-house environmental counsel. In that role she advises the company on complex regulatory matters, new regulatory developments and environmental compliance.

The journey shared by Potlatch and Stoel Rives involves collaboration between attorneys and Potlatch environmental staff to ensure that the company’s operations comply with applicable law. Stoel Rives attorneys participate in the strategic aspects of obtaining permits for current operations, closing discontinued operations and implementing corporate environmental policy. "Our advice has helped Potlatch implement its corporate policy and achieve its business goals in a highly regulated environment," says McIntyre.  Stoel Rives attorneys and Potlatch’s government relations staff also work constructively with state and federal agencies to achieve results.

Case in point: Stoel Rives helped Potlatch renew its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for Potlatch’s largest facility, a pulp and paperboard mill located in Lewiston, Idaho. Securing the permit was not easy, partly because the plant is located at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers, a historic stop on the path of explorers Lewis and Clark. The permitting process also involved multiple parties with diverse interests, including several federal agencies, national environmental groups and local activists. Over the term of the permit, Potlatch will reduce pollutants discharged into the river.

Stoel Rives has also helped managers at Potlatch’s particleboard and plywood mills navigate environmental regulations to reduce air emissions. A pending permit for the particleboard mill will enable resin reformulation to reduce methanol and formaldehyde emissions to insignificant levels. An air permit for the plywood mill incorporates emission control equipment to reduce particulate matter and emissions. Certain pollutants at this mill were recently determined by the EPA to present a low risk to the environment.

Potlatch’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. The company independently became the first publicly traded U.S. integrated forest products company to certify its forest management practices under Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards. It first achieved certification on 668,000 acres of company timberland in Idaho and has since certified 473,000 acres of Arkansas timberland.

Ken Smith, director of Audubon Arkansas, says, "Potlatch is setting the standard, not just in Arkansas, but across the nation with its commitment to sustainable forestry practices."