Chair of Benka Lake Committee Shares Locals' Concerns

When public access to Benka Lake was blocked off by a private landowner last year, many locals were caught off guard.  Now, a committee has formed under the Susitna Community Council to address the access question.

Chris Campbell is the chair of that committee.

“We’ve really been active on trying to figure this thing out and talking to a lot of people—Representatives and DNR. And eventually there’s development going on. Eventually we ended up talking to a lawyer.”

Campbell says the focus of the committee at this point is to put pressure on the state to find a way to restore access for vehicles and boats to the lake. He says the current confusion over legal access could have been avoided if not for mistakes on the part of state agencies.

“We’re not happy with how it was handled. It was transferred to private ownership…and marked for recreational use, originally….We have old plats that show it as recreational use.”

 Subsequent to the interview with Campbell, reporting by KTNA’s Jenny Willoughby revealed that one of the lots, known as Tract A, was never intended by the Department of Natural Resources to be sold into private ownership. Instead, it was to be preserved for the purposes of recreational access to Benka Lake.

While many locals are frustrated that a gate has been put up blocking access to the lake, Campbell says the priority of the committee is to put pressure on the state to address the issue.

“We want to see their bosses ask them why this happened. How did it happen? We’re not necessarily super-critical of the landowner. He thinks he has a point. Obviously, we want him to take the fence down, but it’s DNR that allowed this to happen.”

The Benka Lake Access Committee’s next meeting will be on August 10^th. Local residents have also organized a Facebook Group, called “Friends of Benka Lake” to discuss the situation.