The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving ahead with its review of the borough’s wetlands fill permit application to develop the former Wrangell Institute property for residential lots. The borough hopes to start ground-clearing work next year, Carol Rushmore, the borough’s planning and zoning director, said last week.
Permit review work had been on hold while state and federal agencies and the borough coordinated an archaeological records and ground survey of the property that had been used as a Bureau of Indian Affairs Native boarding school from 1932 to 1975.
The survey was required to ensure there are no human remains buried on the property, and to locate and preserve any cultural sites on the 134 acres. An Army Corps permit for wetlands fill to develop the property for residential use was on hold until the issues surrounding cultural resources or artifacts were resolved.
The results of the survey will be kept confidential, to guard against any disturbance of possible cultural sites, Rushmore explained. There was no indication of any unmarked graves on the property, she said.
The U.S. Department of the Interior last year ordered a records search of former American Indian and Alaska Native boarding schools, responding to concerns of unreported gravesites. Discovery of unmarked graves at boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada prompted the action by U.S. officials.
The Interior Department report, issued in May, said “marked or unmarked” graves were discovered at 53 of the more than 400 federally supported boarding schools that operated in the country.
There were 21 schools in Alaska, including the Wrangell Institute. Most of the schools in Alaska were operated by religious groups.
The borough took ownership of the property in 1996. The school buildings, dorms and offices were demolished in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The Army Corps will require the borough to monitor any construction activities at three areas of the property “that could provide cultural information,” Rushmore reported to the borough assembly. Those areas include the trash dump, a remaining partial foundation of a building, and a man-made drainage ditch, she said in her report.
The Wrangell Cooperative Association has agreed to work with the borough in applying for grant funds to help pay for the cost of the monitoring work and a memorial area on the property, Rushmore said.
The borough has plans to develop, subdivide and sell the land near Shoemaker Bay into about 40 residential lots, with streets and utilities.
Clearing the land for roadbuilding could come next year, if the Army Corps permit moves along, Rushmore said.
Engineering and design, construction bids, roadbuilding and utility installation would come next before the lots could be ready for home construction.
The lots would range from 17,000 to 41,000 square feet. The development cost for streets and utilities in the first phase, for about half the 40 lots, was estimated more than a year ago at around $2 million.
The borough assembly would need to approve any spending on the project.
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