Penn State will spend $8.2 million in exchange for 950 acres of land from the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) by the end of this year.

In a deal between the university and the PGC, Penn State will take ownership of the land known as State Game Lands 176, which it has been leasing from the PGC since 1971.

The lease is set to expire next September.

In exchange for the land, which is located in Patton Township near Toftrees, the university will purchase $8.2 million of land for the PGC.

Penn State's goal is to buy the land that will be deeded to the PGC by the end of this year.

University officials are working with The Conservation Fund to acquire the land.

"Overall, things are going pretty well," said Dan Sieminski, the university's assistant vice president for finance and business.

"We're reasonably optimistic, but a lot of things have to fall into place," he added.

Even though Penn State will officially own State Game Lands 176, part of the exchange deal requires the land remain open for hunting purposes for another 25 years.

"There's a change in ownership, not a change in activities," said Todd Bowersox, professor of silviculture.

Jerry Feaser, the press secretary for the PGC, said the main benefit of the exchange is the university will have more freedom in using the land because it will not have to consult the PGC whenever it wants to do anything with it.

Feaser said Penn State has purchased more than 300,000 acres in Clearfield County as part of the deal. The $850,000 spent on the parcel will be deducted from the $8.2 million that Penn State must spend on land for the PGC, Feaser said.

This process of buying land and deducting the money will continue until the entire sum is spent.

Part of State Game Lands 176 "has been managed in cooperation with the game commission for the safe and effective recycling of wastewater," Bowersox said.

The university has been using the land for spray irrigation since 1983, said John Gaudlip, utilities systems engineer for the Office of Physical Plant.

"The most important part of owning the land is to be able to continue to recycle the wastewater," Bowersox said. "It goes back into the groundwater, and in times of low rainfall this is very important to the water resources in the Centre region."

Wastewater recycling is not the only use of the land that Penn State is concerned with.

"There are other plant research projects on it, so it is considered to be a valuable piece of land for all the research being done," Feaser said.

Part of the land is farmland, and the rest of it is forest, Bowersox said. "We're very concerned with [the forest] piece of the property as a habitat for wildlife species," he said.

Officials from Penn State and the PGC said they are confident the deal will go according to plan.

"Right now, we're just trying to have all the I's dotted and the T's crossed by the end of the year," Feaser said.