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| WLT's Land Preservation Coordinator Damon Oscarson searches for amphibians in a vernal pool on the Eastwoods Preserve. |
Eastwoods Preserve
48 acres
Eastwoods Road, Pound Ridge
Westchester Land Trust has worked with at least a dozen towns, cities and villages to protect land around the county. We thrive on our partnerships. But we've never before had a partnership like the one with Pound Ridge that resulted in the acquisition of 48 acres on Eastwoods Road.
What made it unique? When Tom Andersen worked out a price with the owner's representative, he was wearing two hats - one as a member of the Land Trust staff, the other as chairman of the Pound Ridge Open Space Acquisitions Committee. Now that's a partnership.
In November of 2007 the Town completed the acquisition, and the result is a new town preserve that protects the headwaters of a local reservoir and a key connecting tract in a much larger biodiversity area. All of it is protected doubly by a conservation easement that the Town granted to Westchester Land Trust and the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy.
The price for the 48 acres is $2.9 million; the Town contributed $2.3 million of that from its open space fund and Westchester Land Trust, thanks to an anonymous donor, contributed $600,000.
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| Four-toed salamanders can be identified by their spotted undersides. These tiny amphibians are indicative of high-quality habitat. |
The Town's open space committee first walked the property and evaluated it in the spring of 2001. The committee rated it highly, and when the land came on the market in early 2007 the committee enthusiastically recommended to the Town Board that Pound Ridge's open space fund be used to acquire it. The Town Board voted 4-0 in September of 2007 to do so.
The property encompasses a large central wetland that is fed by five or six small streams that trickle through beech groves and over rock outcrops. The entire 48 acres is forested. There are three or four vernal pools.
The big wetland drains into a stream that leads to the Siscowit Reservoir, which is part of Stamford 's drinking water system. By acquiring the property, the Town and the Land Trust are protecting the wetland itself and the quality of the water that flows from it and, eventually, into the taps of Stamford residents. Protecting water quality is foremost on a list of criteria for buying land that the Town Board adopted after Pound Ridge's open space proposition passed in 2000.
Stamford's reservoirs are owned by the Aquarion Water Company, which owns about 1,300 acres in Pound Ridge, most of it surrounding the Siscowit Reservoir to the southeast of the property and the Trinity Lake and Mill River reservoirs, to the northwest. Those large, undeveloped areas constitute important biodiversity hubs in the Eastern Westchester Biotic Corridor, a 22,000-acre area with extraordinarily high wildlife value in Pound Ridge, Lewisboro and North Salem.
The Eastern Westchester Biotic Corridor report, published in 2002 by the Wildlife Conservation Society/Metropolitan Conservation Alliance, said about the area in Pound Ridge:
... approximately 1,000 acres of mostly undeveloped land connect [Aquarion] properties with the land surrounding the Siscowit Reservoir. ... the habitats appear to be of high quality. In addition to their potential as wildlife habitat, they buffer and connect the important habitats of the [Aquarion] properties and the land surrounding the Siscowit Reservoir. A number of significant focal species occur on the [Aquarion] properties and associated habitats within the town. ... As stated previously, it is crucial that habitat hubs remain connected by relatively viable habitats. Although some degree of development can potentially be tolerated by dispersing wildlife ... it is important that such areas do not become impermeable to animal movement.
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| Wetlands on the property form one of the headwaters of the Siscowit Reservoir, which serves Stamford. |
Michael Klemens, Ph.D., a co-author of the biotic corridor study, later wrote to the Town's open space committee:
...this key section of the Eastern Westchester Biotic Corridor is an area that remains relatively unfragmented by development. Its roads are few and lightly-traveled. Much of the land is in the hands of a small number of owners. And a portion of the acreage is already preserved. Because of these reasons, this area of Pound Ridge presents an excellent opportunity to preserve one of Westchester County's highest-quality habitats.
Protecting the 48 acres means that an important wildlife connection between the Siscowit property and the Trinity Lake-Mill River property will remain open.
The Land Trust will be working with the Town on a management plan for the property that includes a trail that will give local residents a chance to see the land's beauty but still protect its sensitive areas.