ATHENS―The Greene Land Trust has completed a year-long process to acquire and permanently protect a 221-acre property to be known as the Potic Creek Preserve.
The non-profit plans to convert the property into a publicly accessible park with miles of year-round trails for hiking, snowshoeing and enjoying the natural landscape.
According to Greene Land Trust, funding in the amount of $1,025,000 came from The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck (PCLB) Foundation with additional support from neighboring landowners and Scenic Hudson.
“The property includes the lower reaches of Potic Creek, one of the most significant tributary streams of the Catskill Creek watershed that in turn flows into the Hudson,” the organization stated.
“Nearly all of the land is forested with diverse habitats including mature floodplain forest, mature oak-hickory forest, and hemlock forest with healthy trees. Trails along the creek will lead up a hill looking out to the northern Catskill Mountain Escarpment,” according to Greene Land Trust.
Opening of the new trails is slated for next spring.
Greene Land Trust was established in 2004 in response to environmental impact assessments of the Greene County Industrial Development Agency’s Greene Business and Technology Park that showed disruption to the environment of several bird species. To mitigate the loss of habitat, 300 acres was donated to the Greene Land Trust to form the forever-protected Creek Grassland Preserve.
Since then, the Coxsackie Creek Grassland Preserve has grown to more than 400 acres and Greene Land Trust now works to protect over 1,000 acres of forest farmland and wetland.