| Wells Barren Secured for Water Resources and Wildlife Habitat
November 5, 2007
PRESS RELEASE
WELLS, MAINE - 15 years after negotiations began, a 560-acre parcel in Wells has been acquired and shall be preserved through a partnership between the Kennebunk Kennebunkport & Wells Water District and The Nature Conservancy. The Wells Barren property is adjacent to the State's Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area and is critical to preserving both drinking water supplies and some of the rarest species and natural communities in Maine . The protection of the Wells Barren is the most significant conservation project conducted at the site since 1990 when the Land for Maine 's Future Program made its first purchase in Maine right next door at the Kennebunk Plains.
"With this purchase we've protected a significant portion of the headwaters of Branch Brook," said Water District Superintendent Norm Labbe. "Our job is to provide clean, safe drinking water at a reasonable cost to some of Maine's fastest growing communities. Securing this tract of land in its natural state will greatly aid in protecting the Branch Brook watershed."
Branch Brook is the primary water supply for a population that varies seasonally from 30,000 to nearly 100,000. The undeveloped sandplain through which Branch Brook flows is part of its aquifer recharge area. With this acquisition, over a mile and a half of frontage on Branch Brook is protected from future development. According to Labbe, development of the Wells Barren could have greatly compromised the integrity of the aquifer and jeopardized this significant municipal water supply.
Keith Fletcher, Southern Maine Program Manager for The Nature Conservancy who negotiated the deal along with Labbe, said this project shows how important it is to address issues like water quality and wildlife habitat in tandem.
"The Nature Conservancy has a commitment to both people and place," said Fletcher. "The nature we are protecting here is exquisitely rare, and nothing is more essential to people than the purity of their drinking water. We're proud that, working together, we've contributed to a stable and safe source of public drinking water, a diverse wildlife habitat and an area of great natural beauty that can be enjoyed by everyone."
Labbe and Fletcher describe the deal as beneficial to both conservation interests and Water District customers. The Conservancy has committed $1.9 million and the KKWWD has committed $1.1 million. The property was purchased from Massachusetts-based Wells Blueberry Inc. The Conservancy will now need to raise a stewardship endowment for the property.
"The Conservancy is raising the bulk of the private and public funds for this deal," said Labbe. "They hold 380 acres of the grassland portion of the site in fee and the Water District holds title to the existing spring water extraction facility and 180 acres of the woodland portion (primarily along the brook), over which the Conservancy will hold a conservation easement. From the Water District's perspective, we are really leveraging our funds almost 2 to1 while we protect the primary water source for our customers. In addition, we'll retain surface, ground and spring water rights associated with the existing water extracting facility, which we may exercise in the future, but Wire Road residents will no longer have to contend with tractor-trailer trucks hauling spring water through their neighborhood."
| The Wells Barren |
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The geology of the area is what makes the Wells Barrens so unique. Thousand of years ago as the continental glacier was melting, it dropped its sand load as it met the ocean, leaving sand deposits ten to hundreds of feet deep. Rainwater percolates through the sand, strikes a clay table, and gushes out in springs along the Branch Brook. These springs provide flow of the Brook, the local water supply. Because water passes through the sandy soils so easily, it has created perfect conditions for a rare natural community called a sandplains grassland.
"It's basically a prairie," said the Conservancy's Fletcher. "You can find some of the same plants normally found in the prairie states, including little bluestem grass. There are probably fewer than ten thousand acres like this left in the world, so this is quite a bit to conserve all at once. We are fortunate to have it here in Maine .
"We believe this purchase is essential to provide enough habitat for such endangered and threatened species as Grasshopper sparrow, Upland Sandpiper, Vesper Sparrow, as well as Black Racer snake, and more than likely New England Cottontail. And it is also habitat for moose and bear."
According to Fletcher, Wells Barrens has been maintained as a prairie through long-term management by Native Americans and later by settlers and blueberry farmers, each using fire to keep the plains open. While the land will be open to the public for passive recreation, The Nature Conservancy will continue to use careful, prescribed fire to manage it into the future just as previous owners have done.
"It has been burned by humans more or less continuously for five thousand years. Fire is part of the landscape there," said Fletcher, "Wells Barrens requires the same kind of intensive management we use next door at the Kennebunk Plains and we have trained staff in place to do that."
The Wells Barrens abuts other land owned by the Water District, The Nature Conservancy, and the State of Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife at Kennebunk Plains. The new purchase brings protected lands at the site to over 3,100 acres or about 36 percent of the Branch Brook watershed. Along with the Kennebunk Plains, the greater site contains 90 percent of the known global population of the rare Northern Blazing Star.
For more information about the Wells Barren and Kennebunk Plains or The Nature Conservancy in Maine , visit http://www.nature.org/maine.
For information on the Kennebunk Kennebunkport Wells Water District, visit http://www.kkw.org .
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