This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
11/09/2021 12:15 PMThe state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection’s Open Space and Watershed Lands Acquisition grant program has awarded $462,500 to the Madison Land Conservation Trust (MLCT) to complete the purchase of 83 acres of woodlands now known a located just north of the Daniel Hand High School on Warpas Road and will be a critical addition to the area’s conserved properties.
The acreage abuts land owned by the state, the Town of Madison, and the land trust. According to MLCT Director Ben Diebold, the area represents one of the trust’s most concentrated networks of hiking trails and where public access points are most numerous.
Diebold said the purchase of this property represents an extremely rare opportunity to protect open space in the Neck River watershed corridor. The Neck River runs along the western side of the property and conservation of this land is important to the long-term health of the river, the ground water, and ultimately Long Island Sound, according to a statement from the trust.
“It is extremely important to have these large contiguous areas of green space. They do so much. There is a real problem with fragmentation when it comes to land conservation, so this acquisition is going to be protected, the way it needs to be protected. Juggling the competing interest of the two governments was real challenging,” said Diebold. “Most of that was really Dave’s [Roach] doing. He did an excellent job on that end.”
David Roach, head of land acquisition for MLCT, said the hard work was more than worth the effort to obtain this critical addition to the town’s protected property portfolio.
“This property connects into our already existing trail networks. It expands the trail complex in that area significantly,” Roach said. “It is a very large piece of property that is entirely within the Neck River watershed area. The Neck River is one of our highest-priority protection corridors, so anything we can do to protect that is vital. To the town this is a phenomenal piece of property that is within one mile of the town center. It is very accessible and within walking distance of three schools. It offers an awful lot to the community.”
Roach was tasked with the complicated process of filing and coordinating the grants. According to Roach and Diebold, the complex and often contradictory dictates of the two entities (federal and state) took long hours of negotiation and logistical gymnastics to achieve.
Part of the funding received was through the U.S. Department of Agriculture via the U.S. Forest Service’s Community Forest Program.
“All of these grants are intended to protect property and ensure that they cannot come out of conservation at a later date,” said Roach. “Trying to get all of those protections, which are sometimes antagonistic toward each other, all organized so they could be in agreement was an amazing challenge. These grants aren’t usually geared to be put together like this, so that is the problem that got highlighted. For a bit, it looked like we weren’t going to be able to accept both grants and were going to have to turn one back, because some of the protection mechanisms were in conflict with each other. So it took a long time, but thankfully we were able to get this resolution.”
Diebold said considering the land could have been developed with as many 28 houses, this protection effort has forever saved a critical piece of coastal habitat. According to Diebold, the land trust is especially thrilled the property has come via a decades-long relationship with Dr. Betty Lowry, long-time board member and past president of the land trust.
Lowrys’ heirs were instrumental is negotiating a deal where the land could be provided to the town at a cost that satisfied all parties, Diebold said.
Connecticut has more 130 land trusts throughout the state, third most in the United States per state. Connecticut has preserved more than 200,000 cares in total since preservation efforts began in the 1960s, according to Amy Paterson, director of the Connecticut Land Conservation Council.
State Senator Christine Cohen (D-12) said during a virtual meeting to celebrate the opening of the property that the benefits to the town will be multi-fold.
“I love to hike and to discover new places, so thank you to the MLCT and all that you are doing and for preserving our land for recreational use and conserving forest,” said Cohen. “This conserved land really serves so many purposes and brings so many people joy.
“Congratulations to all you on all of the hard work you are doing and making sure we are conserving land and making Madison an even more beautiful place, not only to live, but to visit,” she continued. “The benefits to our environment and to all of us as a community…are really endless when we’re talking about this.”
State Representative John-Michael Parker (D-101) echoed those sentiments during the meeting as well.
“I grew up in Madison, so I had the great privilege of as a young person getting to experience all of Madison’s great outdoors. Now as legislator it is unique privilege to get to continue to protect this for future generations,” Parker said. “I really want to thank everyone for their efforts on this project. It is encouraging to realize that conservation can be a real unifying bipartisan issue. Especially in a time when there can be such partisanship and divide, these are hopefully a set of issues we can all agree on. I am grateful to be joining that legacy for the town.”
Diebold said that considering the organization is all volunteer, the accomplishment of this purchase was truly a community effort.
“It’s kind of a unique story for a small all volunteer community Land Trust like ours to be able to unite with a large Federal grant and a large state grant,” Diebold said.
First Selectwoman Peggy Lyons also made note of the volunteerism that made this purchase possible.
“This is such a beautiful addition to Madison’s land portfolio. We are very fortunate that Madison has such a volunteer driven organization in town, like the land trust,” Lyons said. “They worked so enthusiastically and persistently to make sure that the town acquires property that preserves open spaces and preserves our environment.”
The MLCT is considered by most to have been the first land trust in Connecticut, beginning its work in 1963. The organization has a portfolio of properties of approximately 1,800 acres and more than 40 miles of trails.
For more information about MLCT, its properties, and the Lowry Woods acquisition, visit madisonlandtrust.org.