MINNESOTA — The Superior National Forest, Chippewa National Forest, and Eastern Region Realty Resource staff teamed up to complete inspections of more than 15,000 acres in northern Minnesota – in just one week. The land is being offered for sale to the USDA Forest Service by The Conservation Fund.

“This privately owned land is surrounded by land under the Superior’s stewardship,” said Tom Hall, forest supervisor, Superior National Forest. “The locations, scattered in more than 300 distinct parcels, can make it very difficult to access. When we set out to survey the parcels in preparation for the sale, it represents a significant challenge.”

From July 8-12, Superior National Forest Lands Program Manager Barb Thompson put crews of realty specialists and other supporting resource specialists to work performing inspections on the land.

“Building a team from three different organizations, across many disciplines, to complete a task of this magnitude is an incredible feat,” said Brad Tait, Assistant Director of the Eastern Region’s Air, Water, Lands, Soils, and Minerals Program. “Barb’s experience in fast-paced, incident response teams during her career in fire management paved the way for this team to accomplish results nothing short of extraordinary.”

Thompson created detailed project implementation and safety plans to help the participating staff operate as efficiently as possible. Daily briefings, detailed assignments and careful preparation combined with the dedication of the inspection crews to make this accomplishment possible. In addition, the team employed unmanned aircraft systems to inspect parcels difficult to access on foot.

“As far as we know, this is the first time in the Eastern Region that drones have been used in support of land acquisition,” said Jim Seyler, Regional Realty Resource team leader. “It has been a very wet summer and there were numerous parcels that were inaccessible on foot. The drones allowed us to inspect those parcels with a remarkable level of detail.”

Inspection results will inform the way project managers move forward with the purchase and how forest staff will manage the lands after the sale. Items identified during the inspection, such as deer blinds and trailers, will be removed by the seller prior to the sale, relieving forest staff and taxpayers of the burden of dealing with these items in the future.

“Inspection and survey are a key part of any land transaction,” said Tait. “In a transaction this complex, the efficiency and accuracy of that inspection is vital to ensuring this acquisition benefits the public. We all knew it would be incredibly challenging to accomplish this task within the time constraints. Barb and the crew she organized went above and beyond, tackling this challenge with an infectious energy. They rose to the challenge in a big way.”