The Piscataquog Land Conservancy and the Town of New Boston have joined forces to place a conservation easement on the town’s five Town Forests, which together total 470 acres. Once completed later this fall the conservation easement held by PLC will ensure the properties are protected in perpetuity. Two of the parcels – the Colby & Siemeze Forests — are located on Middle Branch Road, just across the Piscataquog River from PLC’s Thomas and Houghton sanctuaries. The other three – the Lydia Dodge, Sherburne, & Todd Forests — are located along Old Coach Road, and also include the town’s transfer station and ball fields. About seventeen acres encompassing these areas will be excluded from the conservation easement. 

With a June deadline approaching, the Piscataquog Land Conservancy’s ambitious effort to purchase 267 acres of forest, streams and wetlands in Mason has entered the home stretch. The land PLC hopes to buy is located in northeast corner of town off Abbott Hill Road. When the land came on the market in the spring of 2019, a conservation-minded buyer stepped in to quickly purchase the land before it could be bought for development. PLC then signed a purchase agreement with this interim buyer that gives us until June 30, 2020 to raise the necessary funds.

The Piscataquog Land Conservancy has completed its purchase of a thirty-acre forested property along the Middle Branch of the Piscataquog River in New Boston.  The land abuts PLC’s 55-acre George Thomas Wildlife Sanctuary, and is also close to its Tuthill Woodlands Preserve and forest land owned by the town. The new PLC acquisition protects another seven hundred feet of frontage on the Middle Branch. 

In addition to the Meadowsend land purchase, PLC completed two other critical conservation projects in the closing days of June. On the 27th, we purchased a conservation easement on 41 acres of fields, forest, streams and wetlands along Paige Hill Road in Goffstown. The land is owned by Fred and Sylvia Jennings, who have farmed and lived on the historic property for decades. On June 21st, PLC completed our purchase of the Houghton property, a thirty-acre forested property along the Middle Branch of the Piscataquog River in New Boston.

We were recently informed that two of PLC’s current land conservation projects have been awarded major grants by the state’s Aquatic Resources Mitigation Fund (ARM). PLC’s acquisition of the 205-acre Meadowsend property in Weare has been awarded a $185,000 grant, which represents nearly two-thirds of the funds we need to complete the project. PLC’s 52-acre Jennings easement project in Goffstown has also been awarded $94,000 by the ARM program. When added to funds already committed by Town of Goffstown, the grant gets the project to full funding.

PLC and the Town of Goffstown are now working to purchase a conservation easement that will conserve 52 acres of field, forest, stream and wetland, including ten acres of prime wetland in Paige Hill Marsh.  Located along Paige Hill Road, the land is owned by Fred and Sylvia Jennings, who have farmed and lived on the historic property for decades.  The land also features 1,400 feet of riparian frontage on Harry Brook and a tributary stream that flows through Paige Hill Marsh. 

Capping a year-long effort, on June 29th PLC completed our acquisition of the second of two properties from the Proctor family in Lyndeborough. Totaling 112 acres, the two parcels connect over 1,500 acres of existing conservation property, and protect nearly 5,000 feet of frontage on Cold and Scataquog brooks, which feed into the South Branch of the Piscataquog River. The 71-acre property purchased in June includes a key stretch of Cold Brook that will be the focus of stream restoration work now that we own the land.

April 2017, the PLC completed an expansion of the existing 20-acre Grant Family Farm Conservation Area in Weare to nearly 72 acres, protecting the western slopes of Mt. Dearborn. When combined with PLC’s abutting the abutting 114-acre Walker conservation easement, the newly expanded conservation property protects nearly all of Mt. Dearborn.