A public meeting on the potential acquisition of the state’s largest waterfall and a blue-ribbon trout stream by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission is set for March 11 in Valentine.
Owners of the 3,100-acre Snake Falls Ranch have offered to sell the property, and negotiations involving Game and Parks, the private Snake Falls Sportsmen’s Club and the Conservation Fund are under way. The property is valued at about $9 million.
The 54-foot wide Snake River Falls and about five miles of the river are on the ranch’s property southwest of Valentine.
Clint Miller, a Conservation Fund field representative, will present information at the meeting about the ranch’s cultural and natural resources attributes that attracted the organization’s interest. The Conservation Fund is a national organization that collaborates with other groups to protect significant recreation, wildlife and historic landscapes.
Miller is engaged in acquisition talks with the ranch owners, heirs of Les and Betty Kime, who initiated sale talks.
Trout fishing in the ranch’s run of the river below Merritt Dam is legendary. The ranch’s canyons and grasslands support a variety of wildlife, including wild turkey, deer, ducks, grouse, wintering bald eagles and rattlesnakes.
The ranch is near several outdoor attractions: The national scenic river stretch of the Niobrara is about 22 miles northeast; Merritt Reservoir, a prized walleye fishery on the Snake River, is about three miles south of the falls; the new Prairie Club golf courses are about seven miles north; and Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest borders on the west.
Any deal hinges in part on a Game and Parks request for a Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund grant to buy 1,300 acres of the ranch.
The commission asked for $2.417 million. The trust has preliminarily earmarked $1.41 million over two years for Game and Parks’ ranch acquisition. The trust will announce its 2011 awards April 7.
The Snake Falls Sportsmen’s Club would acquire 1,800 acres below the falls.
If the acquisition happens, Game and Parks plans to create a committee of local landowners, area leaders and others interested in the Snake River to drive decisions on how the property would be used, operated, maintained and managed.
Officials have said the agency would establish permanent but limited public access to the falls and the river.
Game and Parks would continue to pay the annual Cherry County property taxes that would have been levied if the land had remained in private hands. Agency officials have said Nebraska’s belt-tightening budgetary outlook should not be a deal-breaker for the commission because the majority of the Game and Parks’ share of the purchase price would come from the trust and federal grants.
The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the new Peppermill restaurant on east U.S. Highway 20. Mick Jensen of Blair, Game and Parks board chairman, and other commissioners plan to attend.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
