Local officials pushing for borough management of former state parks

WASILLA — Add one local geographic feature to your list of possible settings for horror movies: abandoned state parks.

The reality isn’t as terrifying as the idea might suggest, said State Parks Superintendent Wayne Beissel. The technical term for several parcels of State Parks land in the Mat-Su Borough is “passively managed state park units,” Beissel said.

“It’s basically a park that’s been de-parked,” he said.

By de-parked, Biessel means the amenities usually associated with state park land management have been stripped down or taken out, and trails have been barricaded, and the land returned to a relatively unblemished state. The practice of shuttering state parks began in 2002 and 2003, when six or seven parks were shut down over budget concerns. Among those, only one, the former Moose Creek State Recreation Site, has since reopened under a joint operating agreement between borough officials and the Chickaloon Native Village, according to Biessel.

However, local officials say they’re considering — at some point in the distant future — taking over the management of a handful of former Alaska State Parks and turning them into locally managed, if not locally owned, parks.

Assemblywoman Barb Doty says the idea would be to obtain title to the parks while they are inactive.

“We’d get the title to them now, then look for private partners to reopen them,” she said.

The issue hits close to home. Doty helped develop the Wolf Lake Airport. Near the intersection of Wolf Lake Road and Engstrom Road, the former Wolf Lake State Recreation site contains a small shoreline, some wetlands, and a few hundred yards of footpaths.

The idea of transferring the land from the state to the borough isn’t as far-fetched as it seems, Biessel said.

“We would first transfer our management rights back to the Division of Mining, Land and Water, and then they, in turn, would, through various means, transfer it to another entity,” he said.

Borough community development director Eric Phillips said the idea was only in the earliest stages of consideration.

“Right now, it’s so preliminary, we haven’t even met to discuss it,” he said.

Correspondence, so far, had focused around the former Wolf Lake near Wasilla, Deception Creek near Willow, Little Nelchina State Recreation near the intersection of the Glenn Highway and the Little Nelchina River, and the Hanson Memorial State Recreation Site, also known as Hanson House, Phillips said.

Still, the idea of adding additional borough parks while officials struggle to bridge an unanticipated $5.7-million budget gap could be difficult to manage, Phillips said. He was also skeptical that the state would be willing to give the borough the property.

“In my opinion, the state’s not going to give us that land,” he said. “The best we can do is a management agreement that would allow us to take care of their property.”

And improving the parks would also depend on the willing involvement of private partners, like the Chickaloon Native Village was for Moose Creek, Phillips said.

Ultimately, the criteria for the transfer is whether giving up the deed would be in the best interests of Alaskans, Biessel said.

“If it’s deemed in the best interest of the state, sometimes it’s transferred directly over,” he said. “That’s what we’re here for. We’re not here to be land barons. We’re here to act in the public interest.”

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.