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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #87, August, 2000
Current Use $$ Working For You

Fifty-three very developable acres were purchased this month at a cost of $140,000 and added to the Joe English Reservation. This parcel became available when the owner was made aware of the tax advantages he would achieve by entering into a bargain sale with the ACC. In a bargain sale the difference between the appraised value and the actual selling price becomes a charitable donation for the seller.

In this case, eight or nine homes could have been constructed on the land which easily could result in twenty or so students being added to an overloaded Amherst school system. So, for roughly one year's education expense for 20 students, paid for with land use change fees collected from developers, the future costs to taxpayers of eight or nine households have been permanently avoided and 53 acres kept in open space - forever.

In another purchase this summer, 70 acres were acquired by the Town for conservation purposes. This land which was already an approved subdivision of 10 home sites was bought for $800 per acre also using current use fees from the ACC land purchase account. The lots were to have been part of a larger development with access from Bedford. Now they are the embryo of a new reservation - Pulpit Brook Reservation - which the ACC will work to expand over the years.

Pulpit Brook flows from Pulpit Rock in Bedford past this property creating an area of marsh and ponds which are rated as "highly important to water supply" in the ACC/Antioch wetland survey. Summarizing, $56,000 in current use fees enabled a 10-lot subdivision in an important water supply area to become managed perpetually for conservation.

We hope you agree that the ACC is making good use of the portion of current use fees you have entrusted to us. We will continue to use all that's available to the Commission for purchases beneficial to generations of Amherst residents. (That's not just an election year promise.)

Topless Adirondacks

Six days of low clouds kept the high peaks obscured and for six days gave us showers and down pours. Trained by wet experiences on the Androscoggin, we had brought a bailer even though this trip with five other couples was to be on flat water. Was that bailer ever in demand!

The trip, planned by the Appalachian Mountain Club, took us into many areas of the Raquette River drainage. One day we paddled on Little Tupper Lake which until recently was owned lake and all by the Whitney family. Now, following purchase by the state the 15,000 acres, including the lake, are part of Adirondack State Park, a park larger than Glacier, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite combined.

One night we stayed on Raquette Lake at the Outdoor Education Center owned by the State University College at Cortland. Here 2,000 students and faculty participate in programs yearly. The requirement that Cortland students take environmentally oriented courses to graduate grew out of observing the abuse given to the lands and waters by visitors coming into the area. The stated objective of the Raquette Lake Program is to "develop in all participants an attitude of appreciation for the natural resources worldwide". Not a bad objective. Would that the ACC can do likewise in our programs.

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