October 2019 - In one of our most ambitious conservation projects to date, the Piscataquog Land Conservancy has signed a purchase agreement to buy 274 acres of forest, streams and wetlands in the town of Mason. The property is a top conservation priority for the town, and its protection is crucial to completing a decades-long effort to protect the headwaters of the Nissitissit River. The Nissitissit is a main tributary of the Nashua River that flows through Brookline and Hollis, and was given National Wild and Scenic River status in 2018. PLC has previously worked with the Town of Brookline to conserve key parcels along the river’s mainstem.
The land PLC hopes to buy is located in northeast corner of Mason off Abbott Hill Road. When it came on the market earlier this year, a conservation-minded interim buyer stepped in to quickly purchase the land before it could be bought for development. PLC’s purchase agreement is with the interim buyer. If the conservation purchase by PLC is unsuccessful the current owner will have to place the parcel back on the market. Development of the property would significantly impact its extensive streams and wetlands, upland habitat, as well as aquatic systems downstream. We have until the end of June 2020 to raise $650,000 and close the purchase.
The Nissitissit Headwaters property contains over 2,400 feet of perennial streams, including the source of Spaulding Brook, one of the two uppermost headwater streams of the Nissitissitt drainage. The other is Mitchell Brook, which has already been largely protected through the conservation of surrounding land. A wetlands inventory of the property documented nearly twenty-five acres of wetlands, including thirty-four vernal pools. The 2015 NH Wildlife Action Plan designates about half of the land as best-in-state wildlife habitat, with the other half ranking as best in the southern New Hampshire region.
The property directly abuts the Town of Mason’s Spaulding Brook Conservation Area and Doonan property, and builds on the larger protection effort in the Nissitissitt headwaters along Spaulding and Mitchell Brooks, which has to date protected over 1,700 acres of land held by the Town of Mason, the Society for the Protection of NH Forests, and the Town of Milford. The proposed project would also expand conservation to the north and west towards another 1,800 acres of nearby protected land centered on Russell-Abbott State Forest in Wilton.
The success of the Nissitissit Headwaters conservation project hinges on PLC receiving major grants from two state funding programs: the Aquatic Resources Mitigation (ARM) fund, which is administered by the NH Department of Environmental Services, and the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP). PLC has applied to both grant programs and will hear back later this fall. If these large “anchor” grants come through, PLC will seek to raise the balance of funding for the project from the Town of Mason’s conservation fund, private grants and local fundraising.
PLC’s President Chris Wells says “beginning with grassroots efforts to clean up the Nashua River in the late 1960s, local conservationists have been working for more than 50 years restore the Nashua and preserve the wildness of its upper reaches. The Nissitissit Headwaters project is the latest chapter in this story, and we are proud to be part of it.”