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One of Mower County’s largest wildlife management areas is about to get a little bigger when the Mower County Board of Commissioners during their meeting on Tuesday, approved the sale of nearly 23 acres of land to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

County board approval was necessary for the transaction of private land to public land and the land in question, 22.5 acres, is currently owned by Ramsey Golf Club, Inc. and includes a large lake-like area just north of an abandoned railroad trestle north of the Ramsey Mill Pond Dam.

Because it was a transaction between a private entity, the price of the transaction remains private.

“The county is just required to give approval when the state buys land because the purchase by a unit of government makes the land tax exempt,” said Mower County Administrator Trish Harren. “A county wants to limit the amount of tax exempt property it has in order to have the highest value to spread the tax levy across.”

While the state doesn’t pay property taxes on WMA land, the state will make annual “payment in lieu of taxes” to Mower County equal to three-fourths of 1% of the property’s value said Jeanine Vorland, DNR area wildlife manager who oversees the RAmsey Mill Pond WMA.

This new portion of land, mostly covered by marshy waters, will be added to the Ramsey Mill Pond WMA, which will swell the WMA to a total of 418 acres after the transaction is finalized.

Currently, the Ramsey Mill Pond WMA is the second largest WMA in Mower County behind the 480-acre Cartney WMA, north of LeRoy.

With the land being sold to a public entity, access will now be opened to the public as well as helping with conservation efforts of wetlands, shoreland and wildlife that is dependent on these habitats.

As it stands now, people can access the Ramsey Mill Pond WMA by two methods, including a gravel road off of Mower County 61, three miles north of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center. From there a path leads to the WMA itself.

The second access is a parking area off 260th Street on the WMA’s west side, just south of Lansing.

“It seems to make sense,” said Cedar River Watershed District Outreach Coordinator Tim Ruzek. “There is already 385 acres of WMA that surrounds (the 22.5 acres) on the southeast and north sides. Most of that area is public waters. People kind of assumed it was public anyway. This cleans that up.”

“It’s just another step toward getting our local community to get out to the Ramsey Mill Pond Area,” he added.

Up until the finalization of this project, the 22.5 acres has been privately owned by Ramsey Golf Club Inc, which used to operate a golf course on where a river access has been developed across from the Old Mill Restaurant.

The county purchased those 23 acres in 2017 as part of flood mitigation efforts, however, Harren said there is hope in the future that that area can be developed for recreational purposes.

Part of those plans included a sale for $1 to the city who had an interest in developing it into a minimal maintenance park with trails and tree management through grant funding.

“However, when it came time to do the transaction, we learned that we have to sell it for market value since it was purchased with federal dollars,” Harren said. “The value at that time was approximately $30,000.”

“There is still interest in developing the land in partnership with the SWCD, however, the project has not moved forward,” Harren added.