INC NEWS - GREAT NEWS! CWMTF HAS GRANTED $1.12 MILLION FOR PURCHASE OF DUKE/PENNY LAND!

[Wendy Jacobs]

Dear Orange and Durham County Neighbors,

In case you did not see the big news in the Herald yesterday- THE NORTH CAROLINA CLEAN WATER MANAGEMENT TRUST FUND HAS GRANTED DURHAM COUNTY $1.12 MILLION TO HELP PURCHASE THE DUKE TRACT AND PENNY LAND!!!!!

 Please pass on this wonderful news to your neighbors, friends and family. So many people in our community have helped make this happen and we can now feel assured that New Hope Creek Park/Preserve WILL happen!!!!

 The Clean Water Management Trust Fund (CWMTF), has joined with our community to forge another level of partnership. The campaign to protect New Hope Creek and create New Hope Creek Park now includes our state government, four local governments, our local conservancy- Triangle Land Conservancy, citizens all across Durham and Orange Counties and beyond, neighborhood associations, community conservation groups,  the New Hope Creek Advisory Committee, the Erwin Area Neighborhood Group, Duke University and local landowners, Carolyn and Wade Penny. AND WITHOUT THE CONTRIBUTION AND PARTICIPATION OF EACH AND EVER MEMBER OF THIS PARTNERSHIP THIS VISION COULD NOT HAVE SUCCEEDED!!!! ISN'T IT AMAZING WHAT WE CAN ACCOMPLISH WHEN WE  ALL WORK TOGETHER FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR COMMUNITY?


A special thank you to the staff of the CWMTF and especially to director Bill Holman,  Lisa Schell and Nancy Guthrie. We are so appreciative of CWMTF Board's support of our community's effort to help complete the New Hope Creek Corridor, create the park and further protect New Hope Creek watershed. Please check out the CWMTF website at www.cwmtf.net.  You will be amazed at what this fund makes possible. We are so fortunate to have this important entity in our state. Look at the list of projects that have been funded all across North Carolina that help protect our water and green spaces. Please remember the CWMTF when it is time for the General Assembly to decide on their funding level- it will be  vital  to let our state legislators know that we want the CWMTF to remain fully funded!!! 

Thank you again to Deb Christie, who spearheaded our July Legislative Tour in which we invited our local legislators, elected officials, CWMTF staff and board members and others to come and get a glimpse of the Duke tract and Penny lands. Many thanks to Judd Edeburn, Rich Shaw and Jeff Fisher who did the lions share of creating the trail for this event. Poison ivy, tick nests, stinging hornets in the heat of July and all!

Another special thank you  to some of the unsung heroes in our local governments who do so much work behind the scenes and often do not get ample recognition. Thank you to our outstanding government managers- Mike Ruffin (Durham County), Patrick Baker (Durham City), Cal Horton (Chapel Hill) and John Link (Orange County). They make a lot of things happen! A huge thank you also to the many dedicated and hard working government staff  members.  Jane Korest  (Durham Real Estate and Open Space Manager)  was responsible for the grant application to the CWMTF and Rich Shaw (Orange County Land Conservation Manager)  also helped with the grant. Both of them, along with Mike Giles (Durham Open Space Coordinator) have used their tremendous expertise in countless other ways to help with this project. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for all of your important work on behalf of our community.

We can not express enough appreciation for the contribution of land owners Carolyn and Wade Penny. Their generous actions  will result in the perpetual preservation of their land  and have made all of this possible. We hope other land owners in critical watershed/openspace areas will be inspired by their example.

Many thanks again to our visionary elected officials in all four governments-Ellen Reckhow, Becky Heron, Phil Cousin, Diane Catotti, Bill Bell, Eugene Brown, Cora Cole McFadden, Barry Jacobs, Alice Gordon, Steve Halkiotis, Valerie Foushee, Bill Strom, Ed Harrision, Kevin Foy, Cam Hill, Mark Kleinschmidt, Sally Greene, Jim Ward, and Dorothy Verkerk- who responded to citizen concerns and supported the regional park proposal. 
And a grateful  thank you to members of the Triangle Land Conservancy staff  - director Kevin Brice, Jeff Masten, Doug Nicholas, Liz Metz and Tracy Joseph -who actively supported EANG efforts and are working  hard to administer the EANG pledge fund. No easy task!!! 


The CWMTF grant will provide $1million toward the purchase of the 44 acre Duke tract. This coupled with the $200,000 pledged by EANG will leave  Durham County, Durham City, Chapel Hill and Orange County governments only having to cover the remaining $300,000. The CWMTF  grant will also provide $120,000 toward the purchase of the Penny land along New Hope Creek ( about 22 acres) which will cover most of the bargain price being offered by Carolyn and Wade Penny. In addition, the Pennys will put the remainder of their land (about 37 acres) under a conservation easement at no cost.

In the end, our four governments will spend about $300,000 to acquire a key piece of the New Hope Creek Corridor, the Penny lands, and to protect more than 100 acres of land in the New Hope Creek watershed.  We hope our elected officials will be inspired to do more of this type of regional/community partnership!

The Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC) recently published their GreenPrint Report ( www.trianglegreenprint.org ) which says that in order to preserve a linked system of open space for generations to come, we need to protect 6,300 acres per year at a cost of $95 million per year in the Triangle region, if we are going to keep pace with development and escalating land prices. The report recommends open space bonds as a low-cost, effective method for municipalities to help accomplish this.

We now look forward to the next step in the creation of New Hope Creek Park/Preserve- an interlocal agreement among our four governments and the formation of a stakeholder advisory group. 
We also urge TLC, our local governments and local landowners to move quickly and work together to protect/purchase the remaining land in the New Hope Creek Corridor that still lies vulnerable to development.


THANK YOU AGAIN TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WHO HAS HELPED TO MAKE THIS WONDERFUL ACHIEVEMENT POSSIBLE.  THROUGH OUR EFFORTS WE HAVE NOT ONLY HELPED  PROTECT NEW HOPE CREEK AND ITS WATERSHED, WE HAVE ALSO CREATED A GREATER SENSE OF COMMUNITY AMONGST ALL INVOLVED IN THIS PROCESS.

As we celebrate this good news, know that New Hope Creek Park/Preserve is already alive in the world of some members of our community! 100 third graders at Forest View Elementary School, just down the road from the Erwin and Pickett access to New Hope Creek, are immersed in a  year long study of New Hope Creek. Today is their first field study expedition!  These students will navigate a trail that crosses four pieces of the puzzle, passing through Duke, TlC, Penny and Fisher land to get to New Hope Creek. One day soon, all of these pieces will simply be New Hope Preserve.

Wendy Jacobs
For Erwin Area Neighborhood Group






 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.deltaforce.net/mailman/private/inc-list/attachments/20051116/3d284570/attachment-0001.htm
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: GRANT NEWS.wps
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 22016 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.deltaforce.net/mailman/private/inc-list/attachments/20051116/3d284570/GRANTNEWS-0001.obj