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08/16/2016 01:30 PMOne year after the almost 1,000-acre area known as The Preserve became public open space, the Town of Old Saybrook and state are about to contract with the consultant to develop a plan that will guide the land’s management for the next 10 years. Old Saybrook, which contains the bulk of The Preserve acreage (Essex and Westbrook also contains portions), on Aug. 2 released a request for proposals (RFP) for consultants experienced with the development of forest stewardship plans.
The stewardship plan, once done, will describe how to design a permanent trail system without compromising those natural resources, communities, and habitats needing isolation for their protection. The recently marked hiking routes through The Preserve are actually interim trails; the permanent trail routes of The Preserve may be different from the interim ones.
Consultant bids are due back to the town by Friday, Sept. 2 by 3 p.m.. Interviews with firms on the short list should be in September and a finalist chosen by early fall.
A $50,000 grant the town recently received from the Preserve Stewardship Fund, a fund under the management of the State Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP), will pay for the consultant’s work.
The goal of the proposed plan, as stated in the RFP’s introduction, “is to manage The Preserve as a multi-use forest to support public recreation and education, to maintain important natural communities and habitat, to protect threatened plant and animal populations, and to increase forest and habitat diversity as may be appropriate.”
The RFP notes that the consultant’s work will begin with a “thorough review of existing natural resources data collected for the property, available from the town, state, and other organizations, to identify unique or valuable natural areas that should be protected.” This task would be followed by a complete assessment of all forest stands on the property and of the forest’s health and habitat diversity.
A recreational use assessment to identify appropriate low-intensity uses would be next.
With these tasks completed, the consultant then is asked, based on this information and planning, to develop a long-term management plan with recommendations, including “a work plan for silvicultural [tree-tending] operations, maintenance of roads, trail, and boundaries, invasive species and wildlife habitat identification and management, and recommendations for improvements.”
When the consultant has prepared a draft plan, the contract requires it be presented to local interest groups and the general public to take comments and the incorporated feedback in the plan’s comments sections.
According to First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Jr., The Preserve’s owners hope to have a signed contract with the chosen consultant within the next few months so that work can begin.
New Parking Lot Work Starting
Starting in September, DEEP will begin construction on a new public parking lot on Route 153 in Westbrook to serve Preserve hikers and walkers. The parcel on which the lot will be built is located about one-mile north of I-95 on the east side of Route 153. The new parking area initially will be large enough to accommodate about 20 vehicles. A driveway that parallels and runs along the parcel’s south edge provides direct access from Route 153 and the new planned parking area to the marked trails of the Old Saybrook Preserve trail system.
The DEEP construction team currently plans to finish the new parking lot by late fall 2016.
Vehicular access to this parking area is blocked at the current time by several large boulders placed along the lot boundary on Route 153. In addition, the driveway is blocked at Route 153 by a locked gate that prevents vehicular access.
Chris Cryder of the Ad Hoc Preserve Committee reported that volunteer work crews still have some maintenance work to do in The Preserve to support its recreational users. Dilapidated boardwalks on the unpaved road segment at the end of Ingham Hill Road on the red trail and another boardwalk remaining on the yellow trail leading to Route 153 are scheduled to be removed this fall. Also planned is work to add some Preserve boundary markings and to refresh some trail markings that have faded.
Also, already installed at both the Ingham Hill Road and Essex entrances to the Preserve property are wooden map kiosk structures on which are posted a large-scale map of the trail system. Below the posted map are free Preserve maps that can be taken for use by hikers in The Preserve trail system.
Letter to Preserve’s Neighbors
The Ad Hoc Preserve Committee late last month mailed a letter to owners of the more than 200 homes whose boundaries lie within 500 feet of Preserve land boundaries in Old Saybrook and Westbrook. A map on which the new Preserve interim trail system appears was included with the mailing. Recipients were also reminded that The Preserve land once privately owned by River Sound Development is now jointly owned by the town and the state and will be managed as open space.
The committee in the letter also asked owners to be alert to and to report to the police and Town officials any illegal activities which they observe in The Preserve including access by motorized vehicles, dumping, illegal hunting, or open fires.