The Monroe Sun by Bill Bittar
MONROE, CT — A gap in a stonewall along 35 Old Newtown Road opens up to 65-acres of farmland that has been in the Benedict family for over 100 years. Rebecca Benedict Bottomley, who now lives in Massachusetts, remembers training and riding horses, and playing on the property with her brothers as children, roaming in the fields, and sledding down a steep hill in the wintertime.
(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont today announced that his administration is awarding $14.5 million in state grants to aid in the purchase and protection of more than 2,626 acres of open space through 17 projects in 18 municipalities across Connecticut. Additionally, $343,015 in state grants are being awarded to create two new urban community green spaces in Stratford and Thomaston.
These funds are being provided through the state’s Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program and the Urban Green and Community Gardens Grant Program, both of which are administered by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). They mark the largest round of open space protection awards – both by acreage protected and by dollars awarded – in more than a decade.
Aspetuck Land Trust 's socially distanced native plant sale at Gilbertie’s Farm in Easton was a big hit. Nearly 200 people purchased 700 native plants, shrubs and trees, creating " a great opportunity to get people excited about native plants that they can plant in their own yards that help us to promote biodiversity in the landscape..." as Executive Director, David Brant noted.
Aspetuck Land Trust’s mission to preserve Connecticut’s green spaces is turning its focus toward Bridgeport with the help of a state grant.
The land trust is one of 12 recipients to receive the Connecticut Department of Agriculture’s Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry Grant program grant to implement climate smart practices. Early this year, the state agencies awarded nearly $7 million in Climate Smart Agriculture & Forestry grants.
On Wednesday, March 29, Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz, Agriculture Commissioner Bryan P. Hurlburt, and DEEP Deputy Commissioner Mason Trumble concluded Climate Action Week with the announcement of grant recipients receiving nearly $7 million in funding through the Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry Grant program to implement climate smart practices. The announcement was made at Grower Direct Farms, Inc. in Somers, a subrecipient of the Connecticut Greenhouse Growers Association award totaling $1.75 million to reduce water consumption across six greenhouse operations in Connecticut.
EASTON — Another parcel of town-owned property will be set aside for conservation purposes after residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of doing so this week.
Residents voted 804 to 87 in favor of putting a conservation restriction on a 10.9-acre property on South Park Avenue. This comes after residents voted to sell a connected piece of land to the Aspetuck Land Trust in the spring.
After three of us scrambled this week up a series of rocky ridges leading to a modest summit generously called Popp Mountain, we caught a distant glimpse of a glittering body of water.
This was the Saugatuck Reservoir, which spreads out over 880 heavily forested acres straddling the Fairfield County towns of Redding, Weston, and Easton.
Had Phil Plouffe, Andy Lynn and I climbed this hill a century ago, we would have gazed at Valley Forge, a village where the nation’s first iron plows once were manufactured. This tiny hamlet (not to be confused with the Revolutionary War encampment in Pennsylvania) had been settled by Welsh immigrants in 1760. Connecticut’s Valley Forge now lies some 100 feet underwater.
Today, the Trout Brook Valley preserve, owned and managed by the Aspetuck Land Trust, is a pristine swath of open space that features 13 miles of hiking trails. It also abuts the 162-acre Crow Hill and 117-acre Jump Hill preserves, crisscrossed by an additional 6.4 miles of footpaths.
I have been walking in Aspetuck Land Trust's (ALT) Newman Poses Preserve for the past eight years. After spending almost every day there during quarantine, I decided to officially become a land steward there, taking on the responsibilities of basic trail maintenance.
Come with me on a walk through the park as I try to preserve and protect these beautiful woods.
One of Westport’s hidden jewels – with acres of trails, teeming with native flowers, plants and wildlife – lies just off Compo Road South.
It’s not the Baron’s property. Most Westporters know that land, complete with a decaying house and overgrown paths. The town owns it, but for two decades has been unable to decide what to do with it.
The real hidden jewel is less than half a mile away, on the other side of the street. There, on Green Acre Lane, sits the Caryl and Edna Haskins Preserve.
EASTON — A town-owned piece of land on South Park Avenue will be sold to the Aspetuck Land Trust, after residents voted in support of the transaction in a referendum on Tuesday.
First Selectman David Bindelglass said it was great the sale was approved by residents, especially by such a large margin — with 1,058 residents voting in favor and 574 voting against.
The most recent United Nations climate report reminds us, once again, of what we already know: The steady rise in global temperature spells catastrophe. We must adapt to what cannot be undone and commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
In Genesis, God divides dark and night, earth and sea, then gives Adam the job of naming Eden’s creatures.
In Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1985 short story “She Unnames Them,” Eve, dissatisfied with the arbitrariness of the whole set-up, frees the birds and beasts from Adam’s labeling. Nobody really minds.
“Without names, we can’t communicate,” Prosek said at the Westport Library last week. “But it can create these separations.”
Prosek — acclaimed as an artist, writer and naturalist — gave the Caryl & Edna Haskins lecture for the Aspetuck Land Trust, which serves the towns of Westport, Weston, Easton, Fairfield and Monroe. It was the first time the land trust held a public event since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the library’s lecture space was nearly full for Prosek’s talk.
As rural landscapes in Connecticut have been increasingly transformed in recent decades by commercial and residential development, the state has seen a precipitous decline in native plants—335 species, or 19 percent, are on the state’s list of Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concern. A decline in bees and other pollinators that rely on these species has ensued.
James Prosek, who grew up in Easton, will give a talk about his art and the need to protect the beauty of our natural. Prosek’s talk “Trespassing and Conservation,” will be held on April 6 at 7 p.m. at the Westport Library Forum will draw attention to the beauty of our natural world while urging us to protect, conserve and connect our lands restoring a healthy ecosystem for all.
Weston, CT - Aspetuck Land Trust reports the great news that this week it closed on a property -- one it had been working to attain for 10 year. It is the the 10-acre Montanaro property show in the attached map.
"As you can see, it is located in a critical spot — a doughnut hole in the Weston Wilton Forest Reserve," shared ALT Executive Director David Brant. "If the planned two large houses had been built there, cars and trucks would have driven right through one of our oldest preserves, 119-acre Honey Hill."
