With help from a national conservation nonprofit, the Takshanuk Watershed Council has acquired 50 acres of Jones Point property formerly owned by village Native corporation Klukwan, Inc.
The purchase – eight acres larger than the grounds of the Southeast Alaska State Fair – was funded by the Conservation Fund, a national organization that focuses on creating land and water protection strategies that balance environmental stewardship with economic viability.
Takshanuk executive director Meredith Pochardt said the group has received funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for work on a site plan that will outline uses for the property, including restoration, research, education and recreation.
According to Haines Borough property records, the six parcels included in the sale are worth a combined $839,500.
Pochardt said the amount of the sale is confidential under an agreement with Klukwan, Inc.
Unoccupied for the past several years, the property and several of its structures have fallen into disrepair. Southeast Alaska Watershed Council executive director Brad Ryan said Takshanuk began demolition and clean-up on the site this week.
“It’s a pretty messed up site. It has a lot of old buildings that are dangerous,” Ryan said.
Fences have been knocked down, and ATV users have infiltrated the site, which will now officially be closed to motorized use, Pochardt said.
Motorized access via Sawmill Creek Road will be allowed for subsistence use during the spring eulachon run, but a historic road connecting the property to River Road blocked off by Klukwan, Inc., will remain closed, she said.
The site also contains several large piles of contaminated soil from a Portage Cove tank farm property held by Klukwan, Inc. In buying the property, Takshanuk has taken over responsibility of remediating that soil, Ryan said.
About 75 percent of the soil has already been treated, Ryan said.
Ideas for the site include making wetlands improvements, building a bridge across Sawmill Creek to the golf course, installing trails and establishing a native plant nursery for use on other restoration projects, Ryan said.
With the purchase of the property comes the old Klukwan, Inc. office building, a two-story structure Takshanuk will move into next week after vacating their Main Street rental.
“We’ll have an area to house all our stuff. We’ll have a home, so to speak,” Pochardt said.
The building will be used for educational presentations, community events, school programs and other activities in addition to housing staff offices, Pochardt said. Takshanuk will also be looking to rent out office space in the building in the future, she said.
Takshanuk’s three full-time and two part-time employees will work in the building, as will the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition’s two full-time employees.
Pochardt said she hopes to hold a renaming contest for the building toward the end of the summer once the initial flurry of the transition is over. “I want people to realize that we’ll reestablish it as something new,” she said.
The Conservation Fund is an in-lieu-fee provider, meaning they receive mitigation funds from project developers that reduce or damage important ecosystems and use that money to preserve environments of significant value elsewhere.
State fair executive director Jessica Edwards said this week she was excited about the potential to create recreation opportunities for the community linking the Jones Point property to the fairgrounds. A “recreation easement” might be sought to connect the two parcels, she said.