The state wants to renew a rent-free landfill lease for 55 years, on land it holds in trust for a village that never became a city

The state is proposing to let the Bristol Bay Borough keep its South Naknek landfill for another 55 years without paying rent, and to add 20 acres to it — a lease that would run all the way to 2079. The unusual part is whose land it sits on: the state holds it in trust for South Naknek, a community that has never incorporated as a city, and would hand the land and any revenue over if one were ever formed.

Because there is no city, the decision runs through the village's own governing body. The South Naknek Village Council approved both the renewal and the rent waiver in an Aug. 8 vote, 4 to 0 — the approval state law requires before the commissioner can act on trust land. The council's resolution records the borough asking for an additional 20 acres "for future expansion and operations," bringing the leased ground to 60 acres.

The draft waives the rent entirely, and says why: because the landfill "serves a public purpose," it reads, the fair-market-value requirement "is waived in full" and no rent will be charged. The lease being renewed dates to 1984 and ran 40 years, so the old and new terms together would stretch to 95 years. The state holds nearly 975 acres in South Naknek in trust in all.

The arrangement comes with conditions. If the borough ever uses the land for anything but a landfill, the lease ends and the land reverts to the state or to a future municipality; at the end of the new term, the borough would get first refusal on any further lease.

South Naknek sits across the Naknek River from the borough's main landfill, and waste the small village site can't handle is hauled across to Naknek, generally when the river is frozen. Nothing is final yet — the draft is unsigned, and it takes effect only once both parties sign. Comment is open through Sept. 16, and the account here comes from the state's notice package; neither the borough nor the council says anything in it beyond the documents they signed.