WOLCOTT – Bill Morrison, owner of a 286-acre property on Pond Brook Lane, off East Hill Road in Wolcott, on Friday executed a conservation easement with the Northern Rivers Land Trust (NRLT). Morrison acquired the property in 2003 and 2005, establishing a homestead inside the property where he has resided since 1999.
courtesy photo
Land trusts acquire conservation easements when landowners choose to restrict future uses of their land. Use for agriculture or forestry is allowed, but residential or commercial development is restricted or prohibited. Morrison’s easement was NRLT’s 17th in the nine towns it is serving, and NRLT’s second largest after its Wolcott Community Forest.
Morrison’s land contains 271 acres of managed forest, wildlife habitat and two Class 1 wetlands. The land follows Wolcott Pond Brook for almost a mile, and is close to parcels previously conserved by the NRLT as well as the Vermont Land Trust.
At the easement closing, NRLT chair Jack Travelstead and two NRLT trustees congratulated Morrison and thanked him for keeping a large area of Wolcott open for its ecological values and as a working forest.
