The U.S. Forest Service is seeking public input on its plan to acquire approximately 100,000 acres of land in northern Minnesota.

All of the proposed land lies within the boundaries of the Superior National Forest and approximately 80,000 acres lie within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

“Although this is a very large acquisition, it is only a small portion of the 1.1 million acres of Boundary Waters,” said Tom Hall, the Superior National Forest superintendent. “The majority of the Boundary Waters are already managed by the Forest Service, so 80 to 90 percent of the Boundary Waters are already National Forest System lands.”

Those 80,000 acres are currently owned by the Minnesota Office of School Trust Lands, which owns over 2.5 million acres across the state. Trust lands are publicly owned and managed to generate revenue for the state, often through logging and mining. That revenue goes toward funding public schools across the state.

However, it is illegal to log or mine in the adjacent waters. Even if this were possible, the remoteness of the landscape would make access difficult.

“They can’t manage these productively and profitably because they’re surrounded by wilderness,” Hall said. In other words, the lands simply don’t make money for the school fund, hence the sale. If the sale goes through, most of the BWCA land will become federal property, which would solve logistical problems.

Public comment on the proposal began the first week of August and will run online until September 3. While some of the comments submitted were supportive, not everyone is happy with the plan.

On August 15, five Republican lawmakers from northeastern Minnesota sent a letter to DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen opposing the proposed sale. In it, they argue that the sale would violate federal law and call for a land swap instead. They also argue that the proceeds from the sale of those properties would be less than the potential school fund revenue from the swapped land.

The current proposal comes after years of talks about a possible land swap, in which the BWCA land in question would be exchanged for federal land that would generate money for the school foundation. That deal, however, fell through.

“In the assessments and comments we received, there were issues that impacted both the Forest Service and the state’s view of feasibility. It became clear to all parties that this was not feasible at this time. Therefore, we concluded that the project had to be canceled,” Hall explained.

The proposal also calls for the Forest Service to purchase about 3,200 acres of land in St. Louis County that consists of tax-forfeited property, as well as about 17,000 acres of land offered by the nonprofit organization The Conservation Fund. This land, as well as the BWCA land, lies within the Superior National Forest, which is owned by the federal government.

The Forest Service is hosting a virtual open house on Thursday, August 29, from 4 to 6 p.m. For more information, visit the project website.