Our Water, Our Land Places: New Hope Creek

In July 2005, TLC advanced its partners, Durham County, Orange County, the City of Durham, and the Town of Chapel Hill, $200,000 from the campaign's Land Opportunity Fund to purchase 43 acres along New Hope Creek. The Land Opportunity Fund was available for immediate use, catalyzing each of the partners to commit funds to the acquisition price.  The $200,000 helped leverage $1.3 million from local and state governments to purchase the tract, including a grant of $1 million from the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Additionally, TLC has pledges from donors to reimburse the Land Opportunity Fund for the original $200,000, which will then be available for future conservation projects.

Once again in June 2006, TLC used the Land Opportunity Fund to put another piece of the New Hope Creek puzzle in place when it bought 22 acres from Wade and Carolyn Penny at a bargain price. TLC then sold an easement on a portion of the land to the state and the total acreage to Orange County to be managed as part of the open space corridor along the creek. In both examples, TLC was able to act quickly to secure the land using funds from the campaign and then recycle the money to be used on future projects. These two projects galvanized the protection of more than 100 acres along the creek, the final step in completing a 12-mile natural corridor stretching from Duke Forest to Jordan Lake.

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