HCT Makes Progress Toward East Harwich Purchase

EAST HARWICH – In its bid to raise $400,000 to preserve 6.3 forested acres in the Pleasant Bay Watershed, the Harwich Conservation Trust is now just $100,000 short of its goal. 

Less than three months after launching its campaign, the Trust recently announced that it had raised 75 percent of its goal. 

The land is located off Church Street between Route 39 and Bay Lane. Over the last four years, the Harwich Conservation Trust (HCT) has been in talks with two different landowners who have agreed to sell their properties, pristine forested land that not only helps safeguard water quality but links two larger areas of protected open space. If it isn’t preserved, the land has the potential to become a six-lot residential subdivision on a road that hasn’t yet been built, but that already has a name: Lady Slipper Lane.

 The purchase price for the two parcels is $350,000, and HCT is hoping to raise $400,000 to cover the purchase, engineering and survey work, a title exam, legal work and other expenses. That amount is less than the market rate for one of the six lots that would otherwise be created there, HCT Executive Director Michael Lach said. And thanks to a $200,000 matching grant offered by Harwich residents Neil and Anna Rasmussen, the campaign will meet its goal if the Trust can raise $200,000. They have raised half that amount so far.

 Among the donors to date is the Friends of Pleasant Bay, which contributed $25,000.

 The two parcels offer an abundance of feeding, nesting and sheltering opportunities for wildlife. Acquisition of the properties will also establish a vital north-south wildlife habitat corridor. Preserving these "missing link" corridor parcels will enable mammals like red fox, deer and others, as well as a variety of birds, to travel back and forth between the larger protected assemblages on either end.

 Judy Miller, who has owned the 4.3-acre parcel since the 1960s, said she was excited about the preservation opportunity. 

"Saving nature — that's basically what it is," said Miller. "It's part of my nature to want to conserve property for the critters that live here."

 Andrea and Tom Story, whose two-acre parcel has been in Andrea's family for over a century, said they are also happy to have contributed to the effort.

 To learn more and to contribute, visit www.HarwichConservationTrust.org.