Minnesota has plan to sell school trusts lands in BWCAW to federal government

A new proposal would allow the federal government to buy more than 80,000 acres of Minnesota state-owned land in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, moving away from land-exchange discussions that have played out without resolution for at least a decade or more.

The acreage is school trust land across the BWCAW managed by the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in collaboration with the Office of School Trust Lands, a framework constitutionally mandated by the state more than a century ago to benefit Minnesota public schools.

All told, the DNR manages 2½ million acres of school trust land and a million acres of mineral rights that produce revenue for the Permanent School Fund. But the DNR’s responsibility to manage the land within the BWCAW for the benefit of the school trust fund has been limited because the wilderness is federally protected.

The previous plan, which originated in 2012, involved an exchange of about 30,000 acres between the U.S. Forest Service and Minnesota, and about an additional 50,000 acres between the state and the Conservation Fund. Now, the Forest Service says it also will look to buy up to 15,000 acres in the Superior National Forest acquired by the Conservation Fund as part of the possible land swap. The property is in St. Louis County.

The DNR, School Trust Lands Office and Forest Service, which manages Superior National Forest and the BWCAW, have collaborated on the new proposal. Officials said the timing of the new plan was mutually beneficial.

“I think the Forest Service has Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars to be able to use toward this project that they had not had before,” Patty Thielen, director of the DNR Forestry Division, told the Star Tribune.

Tom Hall, supervisor of Superior National Forest, said the Forest Service and state “came to an understanding that an exchange wasn’t the correct action.”

Hall recalled opposition, some from conservationists, when a land swap was proposed. He said the Forest Service consulted with three tribes — Bois Forte, Fond du Lac and Grand Portage — and they also opposed a land exchange, preferring that the agency acquire the school trust land.

The Forest Service this week withdrew its draft environmental impact statement for the proposed exchange. Now the agency will assess the purchase details and open them up to public comment.

Hall said the agency could sign off on the deal by the end of the year. Thielen said the DNR hopes to complete the land transfer by 2026.

Aaron Vande Linde, the School Trust Lands Office director, said the proposal is a “major win” for Minnesota’s K-12 schoolchildren.

“The project’s culmination will result in millions of dollars deposited into the Permanent School Fund,” he said in a news release.