Category: 2020 News and Events

The WLCT Receives a Significant Donation of Land

The Warren Land Conservation Trust is pleased to announce the acquisition of 24.76 acres of valuable wetland habitat along the Palmer River. This was a generous donation from Ms. Karen Burnes of Westport, Massachusetts. The property is located at 314 Market Street and encompasses Assessor’s Plat Map 21, Lots 2, 11 and 50. This is next to 1.4 acres of saltmarsh already stewarded by the Trust. The merger of these properties will form the Barker Preserve, totaling 26.14 acres. A strict wetlands protection easement covers 94% of the donated land and is held by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

This important donation has been in the works for several years. It constitutes a 14% increase in land held by the WLCT and brings the total land protected and stewarded by the Trust to 199.56 acres.

The Warren Land Conservation Trust annual membership campaign is currently underway. Membership funds the land trust’s basic operations, as well as trail development and maintenance, public educational events, and habitat protection. If you are interested in supporting efforts to protect open space in Warren and making them open to the public, you can make a donation on the Support Us page.

Fall at Jacob’s Point

The Fall is a great time to take the beach trail at Jacob’s Point (off the bike path at the Warren/ Bristol town line).

Photo courtesy of Butch Lombardi.

The WLCT Acquires A Small But Important Piece of Land

The Warren Land Conservation Trust received the donation of a 10,000 SF parcel near the end of Pennsylvania Avenue in July. This parcel was the generous gift of Roger and Frances Orifice. Most of this wooded parcel is comprised of wetlands and therefore development would have difficult.

The Land Trust has identified a corridor of wetlands stretching from the marsh across from Malik’s Liquors north to the Massachusetts state line. This low-lying area is east of Market Street and west of Birch Swamp Road. Most of the upland land in this area has already been developed. The Land Trust has a number of wetlands properties in this corridor it is currently protecting, with plans to address dumping and the invasion of non-native plants on these parcels. The Land Trust is interested in protecting other privately held wetland areas in this corridor, with the goal of having a continuous wetland habitat all along this valuable natural resource.

The Orifices’ donation is one more step in protecting these fragile habitats and working to restore their ecological functions.

The new Jade Trail is now Officially Open

Given a very wet Spring and a global pandemic requiring social distancing, it was no easy task to organize trail crews at the Warren Land Conservation Trusts property at the Haile Farm Preserve over the past few months. But a dedicated group of volunteers put in an amazing amount of work and the new Jade Trail was officially opened to the public on July 27th.

The new trail, which is half a mile long and includes approximately 250 feet of new boardwalk, begins at the New Industrial Trail sign and joins to the existing Dick Hallberg Trail to facilitate ‘loop” walking at the Haile Farm Preserve.

This completes Phase 2 of the planned trail work at the Haile Farm Preserve. Later this year work will commence on Phase 3, including completion of the Betty Hallberg and Osprey View trails.

Given the expanding trail system, ongoing maintenance is an issue. The Warren Land Conservation is looking for volunteers to take responsibility for maintaining specific sections of trail. This work, with loppers and clippers, can be done independently and will improve the trail system for the community. If you are interested in volunteering please contact volunteerwlct@gmail.com.

Ben Gagliadardi Helps Document the Haile Farm Preserve

The WLCT is grateful to Ben Gagliadardi for setting up a site which documents the biodiversity of the Haile Farm Preserve. According to Ben:

I have created a publicly viewable project called “Biodiversity of the Haile Farm Preserve.” This project is just a collection of photos and a species list that automatically includes any observations that are uploaded within the boundaries of the Haile Farm Preserve. You can see that there are already 25 photos automatically included from 7 different observers.

What’s nice about this is that the project will remain online and publicly accessible in perpetuity and it will grow as more folks upload observations. I will check in on it from time to time to aid in identifications, and you will be able to keep an accurate running list of the plant, animal, and fungal species that occur in the area. Also, anyone with nature photos taken in the past with a digital camera can also retroactively upload them via the iNaturalist website.