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The Department of Natural Resources has outlined plans to sell 5,900 acres of state land, but the deals avoid potentially controversial properties involving spring ponds coveted by trout anglers and lake frontage sought by a wealthy political donor of Gov. Scott Walker.

The targeted land goes before the Natural Resources Board on Wednesday in Madison. The sales would help address a directive from the Legislature requiring the agency to put up for sale 10,000 acres by mid-2017.

Lawmakers ordered the sales in 2013 because of worries over the rising costs of the state's land purchase program.

Details posted by the agency show that land would go to both government and private interests and call for selling:

■23 parcels totaling 2,405 acres to local units of government and tribes.

■35 parcels totaling 2,486 acres to adjoining landowners where the public has no legal access to the land.

■24 parcels totaling 1,009 acres that would be sold by competitive bid.

All told, the DNR manages 1.5 million acres across Wisconsin.

The DNR had identified other parcels for sale, including land that contained spring ponds in Langlade County. Those properties now are not planned for sale, according to Doug Haag, who oversees the agency's real estate program.

In August, after the DNR circulated a tentative list of properties, trout anglers protested the sales because of the ecological significance of the ponds and their native brook trout populations.

The ponds, scoured by glaciers, are fed by groundwater and feed nearby streams and lakes.

Another parcel not scheduled for sale is 1.75 acres of frontage on Rest Lake in Vilas County to business executive Elizabeth Uihlein. She and her husband, Richard, are major Republican political donors, including to Walker, and are founders of Pleasant Prairie-based Uline Corp.

The Journal Sentinel reported Jan. 29 that Walker's affiliated Unintimidated PAC filed documents with federal authorities saying it received $3.7 million in the last half of 2015. Of that, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein contributed $2.5 million.

The Rest Lake property had been on the Natural Resources Board's agenda in September, with DNR officials saying they had reached a deal to sell the 100-foot strip of waterfront for $275,000. The parcel had been identified for possible sale as part of the master planning process at Northern Highland American Legion State Forest.

But the transaction triggered objections after the newspaper reported the buyer was Elizabeth Uihlein, who owns an adjacent 11-unit condominium. The condo does not have direct lake access.

The board tabled the sale on Sept. 23 at its meeting in Bowler.

Does the DNR plan to sell the land to Uihlein?

"It's undetermined at this point and it's not on the agenda," said agency spokesman George Althoff. "That's kind of where it is. Obviously, at this point it's not going anywhere."

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program has been popular, but some Republican legislators have raised concerns over rising costs. Interest on the debt exceeds more than $1 million a week, officials have said.

The program — named for former Govs. Warren Knowles, a Republican, and Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat — has acquired more than 650,000 acres in the past quarter-century, including multimillion-dollar acquisitions from paper companies. Supporters have credited the deals with keeping the land open for recreation and timber harvesting.

Money from land sales will pay down debt from the program.

To find suitable land, Haag said the agency combed through old files, read through agendas of board meetings dating to 1992 and studied computerized maps to identify landlocked and isolated parcels. No land from official project boundaries will be sold. The DNR has over 600 such projects, such as state parks and natural areas, with established boundaries.

The DNR's aim is to shed properties deemed surplus, help manage land more efficiently and, in many cases, retain deed restrictions to ensure the public can use it.

During its analysis, the DNR discovered 1,940 acres had never been sold as intended. The agency had been required to negotiate land for sale or exchange in one of the state's largest purchases ever. The 1999 purchase of 32,000 acres for $25 million from Packaging Corp. of America gobbled up timber company land and stream, river and lake frontage in Iron, Oneida, Lincoln and Vilas counties.

From that deal, known as the "Great Addition," the DNR was required to negotiate the sale or exchange of 7,000 acres with county or tribal governments. Haag said there is no reason why nearly 2,000 acres were never sold. But a budget paper from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau in 2005 said some counties, instead of taking ownership of that land, preferred to continue getting payments from the state in lieu of property taxes.

George Meyer, a former DNR secretary who criticized the proposed sale to Uihlein and has questioned other DNR moves under Walker, said he supports the agency's latest plans. Meyer is executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation.

He lauded the transparency of the process and said that, with one exception in Forest County, the deals met the criteria of his group, which reviewed every parcel. The criteria: Oppose sales of land with water resources unless it is landlocked or is sold to another government entity.

Haag said the state has not started negotiations, but many potential buyers have been tracking developments.

Jane Severt, executive director of the Wisconsin County Forests Association, said counties are likely to have different views.

Some might think they can't afford it. But others will likely favor buying, if the land meshes with their holdings. Another attraction is counties could generate income by selling timber, she said.