School trust lands important in federal-state BWCAW land exchange

When Minnesota became a state in 1858, the federal government gave it sections 16 and 36 of every township, or their equivalent, so that the state could use the natural resources on that land to help pay for public education. This is known as school trust land. What should be done when some of those sections end up in a federally designated wilderness area where no logging, gravel mining, or mineral mining is allowed?

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages about 2.5 million acres of school trust land and another million acres of school trust mineral rights to property it doesn’t own (called severed mineral rights). About 86,000 acres of the state’s school trust land is in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). For years, the United States Forest Service (USFS) has wanted to acquire all of the land in the BWCAW, either through trade with or purchase from the state and the counties that also have land in the wilderness.

Cook County contains a total of 121,760 acres of school trust land. If all of that land were outside the BWCAW, then the state could potentially generate more revenue because it could make use of the natural resources on the land.

The state could sell its BWCAW land to the Forest Service rather than exchange it in trade, but only as long as it secured “the maximum return consistent with the maintenance of the perpetuity of the [school trust] fund,” according to Article XI, Section 8 of the Minnesota State Constitution. “The principal of the permanent school fund shall be perpetual and inviolate forever,” it goes on to say. Minnesota Statute 127A.31 states that its purpose is to “secure the maximum long-term economic return from the school trust lands.”

County Commissioner Bruce Martinson expects some people to oppose the possibility of the Forest Service buying private land to trade for the state’s BWCAW land because it would leave less property in private hands.

According to a 2010 report on DNR management of school trust lands, the DNR is required to “balance the goal of maximizing revenue generation with the goal of sound natural resource conservation.”