WEST VIRGINIA CODE











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WVC 5 A- 11 - 3

§5A-11-3. Public Land Corporation, powers and duties.

(a) The corporation is hereby authorized and empowered to:

(1) Acquire from any persons or the State Auditor or any

local, state or federal agency, by purchase, lease or other

agreement, any lands necessary and required for public use;

(2) Acquire by purchase, condemnation, lease or agreement,

receive by gifts and devises or exchange, rights-of-way, easements,

waters and minerals suitable for public use;

(3) Sell or exchange public lands where it is determined that

the sale or exchange of such tract meets any or all of the

following disposal criteria:

(A) The tract was acquired for a specific purpose and the

tract is no longer required for that or any other state purpose;

(B) Disposal of the tract serves important public objectives

including, but not limited to, expansion of communities and

economic development which cannot be achieved on lands other than

public lands and which clearly outweigh other public objectives and

values including, but not limited to, recreation and scenic values

which would be served by maintaining the tract in state ownership;

or

(C) The tract, because of its location or other

characteristics, is difficult and uneconomic to manage as part of

the public lands and is not suitable for management by another

state department or agency.

(4) Sell, purchase or exchange lands or stumpage for the purpose of consolidating lands under state or federal government

administration subject to the disposal criteria specified in

subdivision (3) of this subsection;

(5) Negotiate and effect loans or grants from the government

of the United States or any agency thereof for acquisition and

development of lands as may be authorized by law to be acquired for

public use;

(6) Expend the income from the use and development of public

lands for the following purposes:

(A) Liquidate obligations incurred in the acquisition,

development and administration of lands, until all obligations have

been fully discharged;

(B) Purchase, develop, restore and preserve for public use,

sites, structures, objects and documents of prehistoric,

historical, archaeological, recreational, architectural and

cultural significance to the State of West Virginia; and

(C) Obtain grants or matching moneys available from the

government of the United States or any of its instrumentalities for

prehistoric, historic, archaeological, recreational, architectural

and cultural purposes.

(7) Designate lands, to which it has title, for development

and administration for the public use including recreation,

wildlife stock grazing, agricultural rehabilitation and

homesteading or other conservation activities;

(8) Enter into leases as a lessor for the development and extraction of minerals, including coal, oil, gas, sand or gravel

except as otherwise circumscribed herein: Provided, That leases

for the development and extraction of minerals shall be made in

accordance with the provisions of sections five and six of this

article. The corporation shall reserve title and ownership to the

mineral rights in all cases;

(9) Convey, assign or allot lands to the title or custody of

proper departments or other agencies of state government for

administration and control within the functions of departments or

other agencies as provided by law;

(10) Make proper lands available for the purpose of

cooperating with the government of the United States in the relief

of unemployment and hardship or for any other public purpose.

(b) There is hereby continued in the state Treasury a special

Public Land Corporation Fund into which shall be paid all proceeds

from public land sales and exchanges and rents, royalties and other

payments from mineral leases: Provided, That all royalties and

payments derived from rivers, streams or public lands acquired or

managed by the Division of Natural Resources pursuant to section

seven, article one, chapter twenty of this code and section two,

article five, chapter twenty of this code shall be retained by the

Division of Natural Resources: Provided, however, That all

proceeds, rents, royalties and other payments from land sales,

exchanges and mineral rights leasing for public lands owned,

managed or controlled by the Adjutant General's Department will be retained in a fund managed by the Adjutant General in accordance

with article six, chapter fifteen of the code: Provided further,

That all free gas, sand, gravel or other natural resources derived

from a lease or contract made pursuant to this article will be used

to benefit the state agencies, institutions, or departments located

on the affected public lands, or for which the corporation was

acting or to benefit any state agencies, institutions, or

departments having adjacent property. The corporation may acquire

public lands from use of the payments made to the fund, along with

any interest accruing to the fund. The corporation shall report

annually, just prior to the beginning of the regular session of the

Legislature, to the finance committees of the Legislature on the

financial condition of the special fund. The corporation shall

report annually to the Legislature on its public land holdings and

all its leases, its financial condition and its operations and

shall make such recommendations to the Legislature concerning the

acquisition, leasing, development, disposition and use of public

lands.

(c) All state agencies, institutions, divisions and

departments shall make an inventory of the public lands of the

state as may be by law specifically allocated to and used by each

and provide to the corporation a list of such public lands and

minerals, including their current use, intended use or best use to

which lands and minerals may be put: Provided, That the Division

of Highways need not provide the inventory of public lands allocated to and used by it, and the Division of Natural Resources

need not provide the inventory of rivers, streams and public lands

acquired or managed by it. The inventory shall identify those

parcels of land which have no present or foreseeable useful purpose

to the State of West Virginia. The inventory shall be submitted

annually to the corporation by August 1. The corporation shall

compile the inventory of all public lands and minerals and report

annually to the Legislature by no later than January 1, on its

public lands and minerals and the lands and minerals of the other

agencies, institutions, divisions or departments of this state

which are required to report their holdings to the corporation as

set forth in this subsection, and its financial condition and its

operations.

(d) Except as otherwise provided by law, when the corporation

exercises its powers, the corporation will coordinate with other

state agencies, institutions, and departments in order to develop

and execute plans to utilize mineral rights which benefit their

operations or the operations of any other state agencies,

institutions, or departments.





Note: WV Code updated with legislation passed through the 2015 Regular Session

The WV Code Online is an unofficial copy of the annotated WV Code, provided as a convenience. It has NOT been edited for publication, and is not in any way official or authoritative.