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07/21/2020 03:30 PMClinton residents looking to enjoy some fresh air now have a new place to visit thanks to the opening of the Weiss-Loveday Watershed Property.
The property was bought by the land conservation trust in 2015, and trails officially opened earlier this year. The trails can be accessed off of River Road and off of Watrous Road. The nearly 40-acre properties were part of an aquifer that is adjacent to Cockaponset State Forest and the Hammonasset River so the land boasts a diverse wildlife habitat.
Catherine Zamecnik and her husband Tom were two of the people most instrumental in making the new trail system become a reality along with neighbor Chester Ososki. The Zamecniks lived in a house near the property, which Catherine Zamecnik recalled was full of a lot of open space until parts of it began to be developed. Eventually, she decided she wanted to try and protect the leftover land and maintain it as open space.
“We started presenting it to the Board of Selectmen and the town back in ‘99 or 2000,” said Zamecnik.
There were on-and-off discussions about protecting the properties for years, and several presentations were made on the subject.
“We just kept pursuing it for many years,” said Zamecnik.
In 2013, it finally appeared like the town was on track to purchase the properties. A grant opportunity opened up in which the state of would pay some money for open space land acquisitions if the town would pay a portion as well.
The Clinton Land Conservation Trust paid $27,000 from its budget to appraise, study, and survey the property as required by the grant. Tom Zamecnik used his background as a naturalist and was able to identify features of the property that were unique and needed to be protected. Many of his observations were backed up by the state archaeologist according to Catherine Zamecnik.
The Board of Selectmen had voted to appropriate $372,000 toward that recommendation and the cost would have been offset by a state grant of $160,000, leaving a total of $212,000 to be funded by the town. That appropriation request was rejected by the Board of Finance because the expense was deemed frivolous by some members of that board, Zamecnik recalled.
Eventually the conservation trust was able to secure funding from various other sources including a $53,000 appropriation that was approved at a town meeting in 2014. This time, securing the votes needed was easier.
“When I first started, there was no Facebook. But now there was,” Zamecnik said.
The group was able to get the word out and 129 people showed up to unanimously approve the appropriation. The purchase land trust was able to purchase the properties officially in 2015.
For the last five years, Zamecnik said that the trust has been making the property accessible by blazing a trail system. Many of the trails are ones that the Zamecniks themselves created for themselves while walking. Zamecnik listed the ledge overlooking the Loveday property and the Marsh on the Weiss property as her two favorite areas of the land.
While she lamented that now her usual walking trails have more people on them than they used to in the past, Zamecnik said of the property finally being open.
“It’s really exciting and it’s great to see people walking back there,” she said.
For more information on Clinton Land Trust properties, visit www.clintonlandtrust.org.