Sussex County Park Adds 47 Acres

From New Jersey Herald.


It's always good to see additional land being preserved in places noted in New Jersey for their natural beauty, such as Sussex County.

FREDON — The township has nearly doubled the size of Lodestar Park with the announced purchase of 47 acres of land.

Working with the Land Conservancy of New Jersey and using Open Space and Green Acres funds from the state, the newly purchased property includes much of the creek, which travels the southern side of Paulinskill Lake Road. But the land also stretches across the western boundary of the park to Stillwater Road.

The final purchase price was just over $200,000 with the township paying $5,000 for the final land survey.

“We have been lucky enough to find conservation-minded property owners to help us,” said Larry  Lawson, a co-chair of the township’s Open Space Committee. “We’ve been looking to get enough (land) to connect Lodestar to the Paulinskill Trail."

That trail runs parallel to the Paulinskill and follows the old railroad tracks.

Although there will be no direct link to the Paulinskill Trail, town officials said the parcel will allow the expansion of the existing trail network within the park.

“That would be a great Eagle Scout project,” said Township Mayor Carl Lazzaro, referring to community projects that Boy Scouts must complete to be eligible to earn their Eagle Scout badge.

One of the nature trails that now exists within Lodestar was an Eagle Scout project.

“This is a nice piece of property,” he said. “It will be a good addition to the park and make for nice walking trails and nice nature trails.”

Sandy Coltelli, Township Committee member and co-chair of the Open Space Committee, expressed happiness that the township was “able to add this valued land to our inventory.”

In a news release, the Land Conservancy called Lodestar “a wonderful and very different kind of park.”

Sandy Urgo, the land preservation manager at the Land Conservancy said, “The park is unique because it provides lessons in history, agriculture and nature. It has been developed with respect for its environs and its past.

Under its former name as the Morris Land Conservancy, the group also helped the town purchase the 16-acre former Freeborn property in 2008, which has remained mostly woods and has a walking trail on it that can be extended into the new purchase

The Land Conservancy contracts with towns to negotiate on their behalf in land purchase agreements. Over the past 30 years, the group has worked to preserve more than 18,000 acres of open space and helped towns receive more than $220 million for land conservation projects

Lawson said the new land will remain undeveloped since it has several “razorback” ledges with small valleys in between

“The nature of the terrain does not lend itself to development. It will remain a ‘passive’ park where people can enjoy nature,” he said.

181 Acres Preserved in Sussex County

N.J. Conservation Foundation, county and federal governments buy land

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Another 181 acres of the Springhouse dairy farm in Fredon, Sussex County have been preserved as farmland at a cost of $1.02 million through the combined effort of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, the Sussex County government and the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service.

One hundred acres of the farm owned by Pete and Marilyn Southway on Phil Hardin Road have already been preserved. The Southways make artisanal cheeses on the farm.

The newly preserved portion of the farm consists of rolling fields and wooded and scrub wetlands with the Bear Brook, a tributary of the Pequest River, running through it. The farm is adjacent to other preserved farmland and is near the state’s Whittingham Wildlife Management Area.

“Our customers really enjoy knowing that I mowed the fields, milked the cows, poured the milk into a cheese vat, made the cheese, and then cut it into slices for them,” Pete Southway said Tuesday. “People identify with a physical place that they can see, touch and feel.

“We really love the land, the open space,” Southway added. “To see it someday get developed is something we didn’t want to do.”

“We were very pleased to help permanently preserve this farm, and to protect the rural and agricultural character of Sussex County,” Greg Romano, Conservation Foundation assistant director and head of the organization’s land preservation program, said.

Southway said he and his wife became interested in preserving the farm while planning for the estate they will leave to their six children, who range in age from 9 to 27. They subdivided the 330-acre farm into six parcels of 40 to 50 acres each. Two of the lots had already been preserved by a previous owner.

The Southways sold the development rights for the 181 acres acres for the $1.02 million. The remaining 30 acres, including a greenhouse that sells flowers and vegetable seedlings to garden centers, was not part of the preservation project.

A native of North Haledon, Pete Southway said he was always interested in learning about growing crops and raising animals. He and his wife bought the first section of their farm in 1994, while he was working as a commercial banker; they later expanded it when adjacent preserved lands came onto the market.

The Southways now keep 50 Jersey and Guernsey cows, whose milk is used to make a semi-firm farmers cheese that is flavored with herbs, vegetables and dried fruits. They make batches of cheese once or twice a week and sell it at their stand, the county farmers market, and in local stores.

They also grow crops like corn, alfalfa, hay and oat. They sometimes use draft horses to plow the fields and spread manure the old-fashioned way. “It’s slower but quieter,” Southway said. “A lot of our farm equipment is adapted so we can use it with a horse or a tractor.” The greenhouse rounds out the farming operation.

The Conservation Foundation is a private, member-supported nonprofit that preserves land and natural resources throughout New Jersey. Since 1960, it has protected more than 120,000 acres of open space – from the Highlands to the Pine Barrens to the Delaware Bayshore, from farms to forests to urban and suburban parks.

N.J. buys, preserves 126-acre farm in Frankford (07/08/10)

A bumper crop of good news!

By Joe Moszczynski, for The Star-Ledger
FRANKFORD — A 126-acre farm located near the Sussex County fairgrounds in Frankford will be saved in perpetuity as a working farm, the Land Conservancy of New Jersey announced today.

Land Conservancy President David Epstein said the development rights for the Bain farm, located near the corner of Route 206 and Plains Road, were purchased from the Bain family for nearly $1 million.

The Land Conservancy, a Boonton-based nonprofit group, contributed $500,000 toward the purchase price with a grant from the state Agricultural Development Committee.

Other contributors included the Sussex County Agricultural Development Committee, through the county’s Open Space Trust Fund, the federal Farm and Ranchland Protection program and the Township of Frankford.

"It’s really a very special place," said Epstein, noting the tract is located atop a sloping ridge near the Paulinskill River.

The fields at the Bain Farm are also an important habitat for unique wildlife, including ground-nesting birds such as the Bobolink, a migrant blackbird which is declining in number due to the loss of habitat to development, he said.

The farm was originally purchased by the great-grandfather of Tom Bain, whose name appears at the site of the farm on an 1860 map of Sussex County.

"Preserving the farm means a lot to me. I look forward to telling my grandchildren that this is the property that made up the farm held so long by our family. It is good to know that it will always look like a farm and never be covered by pavement," said Tom Bain.

The Bain family currently leases the tract to a farmer and it will later be offered for sale with a deed restriction that prohibits future development. When the land is sold, the Land Conservancy will use the proceeds to purchase the development rights of another farm, said Epstein.

For more information about the Land Conservancy, or to volunteer or make a donation, call (973) 541-1010 or visit tlc-nj.org.