Record-Breaking 17 Deals Highlight 2006

In 2006 TLC completed a record-breaking 17 conservation projects, protecting 1,461 acres and bringing the total acreage protected by TLC at the end of 2006 to 9,096. 

These recent projects illustrate how creative collaborations can protect areas as varied as riparian corridors, working lands, open space and even school sites.

Conserving another crucial Haw River tract

TLC played a key role in the state’s acquisition of a highly desirable 82-acre tract in Chatham County as an addition to the Lower Haw River State Natural Area in November 2006.

The state purchased the property from the NC Botanical Garden for $1.2 million. Located on the northeast bank of the river between US 15-501 South and Moore Mountain Road, the parcel protects about 2,000 feet of frontage on the Haw and another 3,400 feet of buffer on both sides of two small tributaries. With Pittsboro’s drinking water intake directly across the river, these buffers will help protect the community’s drinking water supply.

A rare wildflower, Phacelia covillei, commonly known as the eastern buttercup phacelia, also grows on the property. A parking area on US 15-501 South provides a path to this popular fishing spot and an access point for canoes and kayaks.

The Pegg property on the Haw River.  Photo by Doug Nicholas.

This acquisition is the result of a generous gift from Eleanor Smith Pegg, who donated the 82-acre tract to the Botanical Garden Foundation in 2004. The foundation was instructed to sell the property and use $1 million of the proceeds to help fund a new visitor education center and allocate any additional proceeds to establishing a scholarship fund at UNC-Chapel Hill. After almost two years of negotiations, the state purchased the property. TLC negotiated the purchase and secured $750,000 from the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund and $450,000 from the NC Parks and Recreation Trust Fund for the acquisition. Mrs. Pegg has been a generous TLC supporter, as she donated a 74-acre Orange County tract to the organization in 1995.

Treyburn developer mixes park, school & open space

A complex three-way land deal that closed in October 2006 resulted in a victory for both Durham County Schools and Triangle-area conservation, thanks to the generosity of Bryan Properties.

The land conservation effort began with Bryan Properties’ donation of 245 acres off Snow Hill Road in Durham County to TLC, 171 acres in 2004 and 74 acres in 2006.  In 2005, the company donated a conservation easement to TLC on 48 adjacent acres and donated 32 acres to Durham Public Schools for a new middle school. In 2006, TLC traded 114 acres of the Snow Hill Road property to Durham Parks and Recreation to create a new active recreation park, in exchange for an ecologically significant 61-acre tract on the Little River.

All of these tracts fall within the Little River Priority Area in northern Orange and Durham counties, one of five landscapes across the Triangle where TLC is focusing its conservation efforts. The Little, Eno and Flat Rivers braid together to form the Neuse River. While not as well-known as the Eno, the pristine Little River provides habitat for a wealth of wildlife, including rare mussels, and the waterway and its floodplain resound with human history, as evidenced by the remnants of historic mill sites.

TLC is working with other partners to conserve land along streams and wetlands as a cost-effective approach to limiting runoff and maintaining water quality in the nine drinking water supply reservoirs of the Upper Neuse River Basin. 500,000 people depend upon this basin for their drinking water.

 In brief

Two other conservation closings helped conclude the successful land conservation achievements of 2006.

• The Holding family donated a 95-acre conservation easement on their farm in Johnston County, bringing the land conserved at this property to 401 acres. The family has been donating conservation easements on this property that contains a combination of managed pine and natural hardwood forests. The farm is located in a rapidly developing area near Clayton and the easements ensure that the land will remain forested and continue to maintain a water quality buffer on Buffalo Creek.

• In another generous donation, Treyburn area developer Bryan Properties donated 38 acres as an addition to TLC’s Horton Grove Preserve in northern Durham County. The preserve’s hardwood forest provides habitat for many species—including wild turkey, pileated woodpecker and falcate orangetip butterfly—that require the extensive forested areas that are disappearing so rapidly in our region.