Photos of Casey Road Conservation Land by Kelly Colby and Virginia Long.
The town of Milton voted to place a conservation easement on two abutting town-owned properties along Casey Road, now merged into a single 79-acre parcel. The land will be conserved forever to preserve its natural resource, educational, and recreation values. The town selected MMRG as a qualified conservation organization to hold the conservation easement; raise funds needed to put the easement in place; and carry out the land stewardship monitoring, forever.
The bucolic town of Milton benefits from its proximity to the bustling City of Rochester and well-traveled Route 16, but these amenities portend of an inevitable increase in development for Milton. For that reason, MMRG commends the town’s voters and leadership for their foresight to assure that these parcels are conserved forever. They add to the town’s well balanced assortment of privately and publically held conservation lands that include Jones Brook Forest, Branch Hill Farm (BHF), Salmon Falls Headwaters Forest, trails at Plummer’s Ridge, and Teneriffe Mountain Nature Preserve, to name a few.
The Milton Conservation Commission and its Casey Road Land Protection Sub-Committee played a key role in this conservation project that will contribute to the town’s scenic beauty and rural character, support the area’s evolving tourism industry; safeguard the water quality of Spaulding Pond, protect a natural setting for environmental education, and most importantly provide long term protection to the town’s natural resources.
The land provides more than a mile of trails that extend from Casey Road to Lyman Brook through to a mixed deciduous-evergreen forest of beech, hemlock, oak and pine to a tranquil forested wetlands at Lyman Brook where wildflowers like gentian, mayflower, Indian pipe and lady slipper emerge in warm months. The trails offer an ideal after work walk or spontaneous snow shoe hike, a local setting to introduce children to nature, and more.
In Strafford County, several other communities have voluntarily opted to conserve town-owned land with conservation easements held by non-profit land trusts. MMRG commends Milton for its forward thinking to forever conserve these 79+ acres, assuring that the stewardship monitoring will be provided by an outside resource. This is a win-win opportunity for Milton.
MMRG is seeking partial funding from State grants and private foundations to cover the cost of the conservation easement’s transaction costs and a stewardship fund that totals $47,870. Already the town of Milton Conservation Commission has committed $20,000 towards the project from its Conservation Fund. Soon we will be reaching out locally for individual donations to help address the gap and match the anticipated grants. For additional information or to make a contribution to the project, please contact MMRG Executive Director Patti Connaughton-Burns at (603) 473-2020 or click here to donate online. Checks may be mailed to MMRG, PO Box 191, Union, NH 03887.
