State revokes Nancy Lake park permits

MAT-SU — In the wake of a ruling from the state’s highest court, the Department of Natural Resources has announced it will revoke permits allowing landowners to use ATVs in a specific part the Nancy Lake State Recreation Area.

“Effective Nov. 1, 2013, Alaska State Parks is revoking all current Special Park Use Permits that authorize the operation of highway vehicles beyond the Lynx Lake Road gate, the operation of all-terrain vehicles (ATV’s) on the Butterfly Lake Trail and the long-term storage of boats on park lands and waters,” according to a letter announcing the restriction.

According to the ruling, around 200 people rely on the permits to access their private lands. The Alaska Supreme Court Ruling was handed down July 19. It doesn’t technically slap down the permits, but offers guidance to lower courts on how to rule in the case that seem to leave little room for any decision other than that they must be revoked.

A group called SOP Inc. initially filed the lawsuit seeking to have the permits ruled invalid. The argument was that ATVs on the trail had degraded it to the point that users were forced to go around sections of it, damaging state parklands.

But the legal argument that convinced the Alaska Supreme Court to rule the way it did had to do with whether these permits were actually permits, or if they were easements.

An easement is a term usually used in the context of road construction to describe the state’s interest in land that crosses private property. The state considers an easement to be a disposal of land — i.e., that an easement across someone’s land doesn’t actually belong to that landowner, but instead to the state.

The permits resemble permits in that they were issued to individual landowners, but they resemble easement sin that the state was restricted in its ability to revoke them.

“In practice, it appears that owning private property on or near Butterfly Lake entitles the property owner to a permit, and that ownership is the sole factor controlling who has a right to obtain a permit to use an ATV on the Butterfly Lake Trail,” the high court’s ruling says. “We conclude the rights of use granted by the park are easements, and therefore they are illegal.”

Since an easement is a disposal of land and it’s illegal to dispose of parkland, the state wasn’t allowed to issue permits, the ruling says.

The trail in question was initially installed in the 1960s as a snowmachine trail. Its use by ATVs didn’t come until those machines started to become more popular and more powerful. Eventually, the permits grew to number something like 200 and the rules were extended to allow them to be passed along with the sale of a property, and property owners were allowed to dock barges to ferry their machines across Lynx Lake, Butterfly Lake and Red Shirt Lake. The lawsuit to stop the permits was filed in 2011.

According to DNR’s letter, once there is sufficient snow cover, the trail will be open to use by snowmachine, as it is every year.

But everyone has until Nov. 1 to get their barges out.

“As of Nov. 1, 2013, all boat storage permits will be deemed revoked on Lynx Lake, Butterfly Lake and Red Shirt Lake,” the letter says. “Individuals who currently have boats stored at these locations will have until April 30, 2014, to remove their boats. Note that all stipulations in current storage permits will remain in effect. This action does not affect the moorage of private boats at or along private upland properties on park waters.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.