The members of the Wrangell Economic Development Committee know they’re entitled to about 800 acres of land.
The next trick will be figuring out which land to select.
Discussion at the committee’s March 6 meeting focused around the land issue in general, a holdover issue stemming from the borough’s 2008 incorporation. The land is part of the borough allotment, originally set at about 200 acres, but increased to 800 acres after lobbying at the state legislature, said Economic Development Officer Carol Rushmore. Any land the borough doesn’t select from pre-approved non-federal land areas will automatically be included in the Southeast State Forest, and fall under the jurisdiction of the State Department of Natural Resources. Any land the borough does select must be zoned as settlement or general use, and can then be subdivided and sold.
“If it’s habitat or recreation (for example), we don’t have the ability to select those lands,” she said.
The borough must first apply for the land, after which the state has the ability to approve or deny borough requests. Small local islands, like Channel Island, immediately off Earl West, aren’t available to be selected to make up the acreage, Rushmore said.
The areas where the borough is attempting to get land include: St. John Harbor on Zarembo Island, Thoms Place, Olive Cove on Etolin Island, Sunny Bay, Mill Creek, the Bradfield Canal, Crittendon Creek, Earl West Cove, and a section of land near McCormick Creek on Wrangell Island.
In some cases, like that of the Bradfield Canal, the state has refused to grant borough requests because of its own plans for possible development, like the road corridor stretching from the Bradfield River delta through the mountains to the Canadian border, which is state land and potentially could form part of a connection to Canadian roads and the Canadian power grid, Rushmore said. In other places, like land near the Wrangell Island West Subdivision, the Department of Transportation maintains easements or turnarounds that could prove problematic for future developers.
So many preconditions exist on the ability of borough officials to select land, that committee members at one point questioned whether there was even enough land available to make up the allotted 800 acres. If there wasn’t, the state could or should provide additional land to make up the total, said committee member Julie Decker.
“If we haven’t hit the 800 mark by all the little possibilities here, we have a real strong case for tapping into this stuff,” she said.
Selections should be made with an eye toward what would benefit the borough, said committee member Daniel Blake.
“Whatever we select needs to be something that could actually benefit us,” instead of just owning land, he said. “They’ve already said no to Pat’s Lake, which would probably be my first choice.”
Committee members also mentioned the possibility of selecting some land for the borough now, then trading that land to the Mental Health Trust — which owns substantial acreage on Wrangell Island – in exchange for Health Trust land located closer to the borough population’s center of gravity.
“If Mental Health can swap out land with the state, why can’t they swap out land with the borough?” Blake said. “I didn’t know if that was legally possible, if the state would step in and try to put a stop to it.”
Health Trust officials pointed that any potential land swap with a borough or other government agency could take years to successfully negotiate. A proposed swap between the Trust and US Forest Service which would give Wrangell Island Trust land to the U.S. Forest Service in exchange for some Forest Service land on Prince of Wales Island has taken the better part of seven years, said Marcy Menefee.
“We want to do business, but we can’t necessarily move as fast or quickly or expediently as perhaps a business could,” she said.
The Trust is open to a land trade from any borough, provided it allows the trust to maximize the revenue to trust beneficiaries, Menefee said.
In other business, the economic development committee also briefly discussed potentially developing the Silver Bay logging property into a fourth larger harbor which could easily accommodate the new 300-ton boat lift scheduled to arrive in The Marine Service Center sometime in the next two months.
They also talked about the possibility of establishing regular or seasonal ferry service.
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