Cravaack moves ahead with land swap

U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack said late last week he would introduce legislation ordering the U.S. Forest Service to conduct a land exchange with the state of Minnesota for nearly 87,000 acres of state school trust fund land locked inside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The land, which is dedicated to the state School Trust Fund, has been locked inside the 1.1 million acre federal wilderness since 1978, so the trust fund - which doles out money to school districts across the state - has not been receiving any money from logging sales or mining royalties.

State and federal officials have pursued a land swap in the past, and in recent weeks Superior National Forest and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources officials reached a tacit agreement on a land deal.

Under the agreement, the federal government would buy 45,000 acres of the state land and trade federal land for the other 41,000 state acres in the BWCAW.

Environmental groups have been wary of any wilderness land deal, saying Superior Forest land outside the BWCAW would lose protection if traded to the state to be managed for logging and mining revenue instead of recreational or ecological values.