MARSHALL — A legislative report from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources found no barriers to transferring the Upper Sioux Agency State Park lands back to the Upper Sioux community.

While the report said there were no barriers to the land transfer, there were a series of steps that needed to take place to complete it.

The park will officially close to the public on Feb. 16, and the land transfer is anticipated in March.

The DNR’s report was one of the steps required by park transfer legislation passed last year. The nine-page report was published Jan. 15, and is available online at the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library website.

While the report said additional legislation to remove barriers to the land transfer was not needed, the DNR did recommend that the laws authorizing the Upper Sioux Agency State Park be repealed. In the report, the DNR also recommended removing the Upper Sioux Agency State Historic Site from the listing of state historic sites.

The DNR and the Minnesota Historical Society plan to bring forward those proposals in this year’s legislative session, the report said.

In a January media conference, DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen said the decision to transfer the park lands came out of several different factors. The Upper Sioux Community had a longstanding request to transfer the land back. The land was the site of starvation and death of Dakota people in 1862, when the U.S. government did not provide food promised to the Dakota by treaty.

The DNR has also faced operational challenges at the park. Part of Trunk Highway 67 collapsed in the park in 2019, and “significant investment” in infrastructure would be needed to address that and other problems.

“Making such investments to operate the park isn’t appropriate, given its history and the Upper Sioux Community’s request,” Strommen said.

Legislation calling for the state park lands to be transferred back to the Upper Sioux Community was passed last year. Since then, The DNR has held several public outreach sessions looking for feedback on other possible recreation opportunities in the Minnesota River valley.

The DNR’s legislative report said the agency is continuing to consult with the Upper Sioux Community, and to discuss other opportunities for outdoor recreation in the Minnesota River valley. The report said the DNR anticipates that “a large portion” of a $5 million appropriation will be allocated to new recreation investments. Opportunities had been identified in Granite Falls, Renville County and Yellow Medicine County.

Another part of the land transfer will be removing federal Land and Water Conservation Fund designations from the land. The legislative report said the DNR will submit a formal request to the National Park Service in March.

While the land transfer was “a done deal” after the 2023 legislative session, the news came as a surprise to many area residents, said state Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls.

“A lot of people are unhappy about this transfer. A lot felt it wasn’t publicized well to begin with,” Dahms said.

He said he thought the transfer could have been handled better, in a way that made members of the public feel like they were part of the process.

Going forward, it would be important to find replacement recreation land, Dahms said.

“We really feel that should be done in a relatively close area to where the other park was,” he said.