ClearWater Conservancy this week signed a conservation easement donated by landowner, Katherine L. Alden, protecting 112 acres of her environmentally important property in Penn Township, Centre County.

A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a private landowner and a qualified organization, such as a land trust, that protects natural, cultural, and/or historic resources in perpetuity.

A conservation easement allows a landowner to retain ownership and use of his or her property while limiting certain uses that may be harmful to the resources being protected.

This conservation easement protects much of the Kettle Run Farm Biological Diversity Area, designated by Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in the Centre County Natural Heritage Inventory 2002. The Biodiversity Area possesses multiple habitat types including old field, hemlock – northern hardwood forest, wetland, and riparian.

Of notable significance, one of the early-successional meadows contains lupine, a nitrogen-fixing purple-blue wildflower that is a larval host to Frosted Elfin butterflies, a globally rare species. Lupine is rare or uncommon in the state of Pennsylvania.

ClearWater Conservancy, working with Mrs. Alden, will develop a plan to ensure the continued presence of lupine on the property.

The area of the property covered by the conservation easement also contains 2,600 feet of Kettle Run and springs and seeps that feed it. Kettle Run enters Penns Creek (a Cold Water Fishery) below Zerby Gap. The southern border of the property has a 2,871-foot common forest boundary with Bald Eagle State Forest.

The protection of the property helps to maintain the integrity of core forest in this area.

Attorney Amos Goodall of Goodall and Yurchak, P.C., Attorneys at Law, David Sweetland and Mac Blizzard of Sweetland Engineering and Associates, Inc. and William C. Brusse P.G. generously donated many hours of their service to make this easement a reality.

ClearWater Conservancy has the responsibility to monitor and protect the area of the property covered by the conservation easement, and we thank Mrs. Alden for making a generous contribution to our Conservation Easement Stewardship Fund that ensures the capacity of ClearWater to protect the property in perpetuity.

12/21/2007