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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Swap To Get Environmental Study

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service is planning an environmental review on a proposal to swap about 50 square miles of state-owned land in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for national forest system land elsewhere.

About 86,000 acres in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area remain inside "school trust" land that the federal government gave to the state of Minnesota in 1849. Earlier this year, the Forest Service agreed to buy about 56,000 of those acres and exchange the remaining 30,000 acres for federal forest land outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

The compromise, which calls for both a purchase and a land swap, would allow the state to use the federal land in the proposed swap to generate revenue for public schools through logging, mining or other development.

A public comment period on the proposal was held earlier this year. The Forest Service got more than 1,600 comments, and additional comments can be submitted through Sept. 30, the federal agency said.

As a result of strong response the proposal has received, the Forest Service has decided to complete an in-depth environmental impact statement, according to spokeswoman Sandy Skrien.

"The interest and response was greater than we anticipated," she said.

The review will include all of the comments submitted to the Forest Service and will rely on a panel of experts to define the scope of the review and analyze environmental issues. The first draft of the environmental impact statement is expected to be published in early 2016 and be available for public comment, the Forest Service said in a news release Monday.

(© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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