In a 3-2 vote on Thursday, Wyoming’s State Board of Land Commissioners agreed to sell 640 acres of pristine land known as the Kelly Parcel to the National Park Service for $100 million. The parcel will be incorporated into Grand Teton National Park. A plan to sell the land to the federal government had been slowly advancing for 15 years. The Kelly Parcel was the last state-owned land within the exterior boundaries of the park.
When the matter was put before the State Board of Land Commissioners this week there was heavy opposition to the sale from Wyoming’s Secretary of State Chuck Gray and Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder.
Degenfelder supported a land swap rather than an outright sale.
She proposed that the feds trade some 100,000 acres of developable land in the Powder River Basin, an area rich in coal deposits, in exchange for the Kelly Parcel, telling the Cowboy State Daily that the swap would be “giving us ownership of developable lands that could produce income for generations to come.”
Gray questioned the sudden interest in striking a deal after 15 years of negotiations, and complained that he’d been left out of the final steps in striking a deal.
The Kelly parcel has been appraised for $62.4 million. The Department of Interior has set aside that amount for the purchase and the rest of the funds will come from The Grand Teton National Park Foundation, according to WyoFile. Proceeds of the sale will go into a permanent school fund to benefit Wyoming public education. In 2023, the state earned about $3,000 from leasing out the Kelly Parcel. The state stands to earn millions of dollars annually in investment income alone from the $100 million sale.
Grand Teton National Park Superintendent Chip Jenkins was happy to see the sale move forward.
“Today, the Wyoming State Board of Land Commissioners took an important step toward protecting the 640-acre Kelly Parcel as part of Grand Teton National Park for the enjoyment of all Americans while providing significant funding for Wyoming schools,” Jenkins told the Traveler. “We appreciate Wyoming and its residents’ continued support for the protection of incredible wildlife and scenery in the area and we look forward to working with them to complete this important effort.”
The deal is contingent upon Wyoming’s Governor, Mark Gordon, giving the go-ahead. Before Gordon can do that, however, the Bureal of Land Management (BLM) must deliver a finalized Resources Management Plan for an entirely separate chunk of Wyoming called Rock Springs. Sale of the Kelly Parcel was linked to the new RMP by the Wyoming state legislature last year. It’s expected the BLM will present their final RMP to Gordon by the end of the month.
Though the State Board of Land Commission approved the sale, there’s no hard closing date for escrow. Either party can back out for any reason until the transaction is complete.
