We are thrilled to welcome Abby Greenwell, the new easement Conservation Manager of Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT). Abby is a highly recommended Navy veteran with 12 years of experience. She is passionate about preserving the rural and ecologically diverse Southern Maryland, where she has lived most of her life. Abby, her husband and three children, currently live in Leonardtown. She has varied skills that make her perfectly suited to this position: Computer expertise, professional organizational skills, farm and local community knowledge, partnership building, and project management.
Contact Abby if you want to talk about land conservation, land trusts or PTLT. Abby is a delight to work with. Southern Maryland land preservation has gained a strong ally.
Abby Greenwell, Conservation Manager, already out in the field
with Jackson Webb, on his farm with recent PTLT easement
A Conversation with Abby Greenwell
PTLT’s Manager of Contracts discusses her background, views on land stewardship, and her hopes
Interview by Phil Hayward
Abby Greenwell remembers a time not so long ago when traffic on Rt. 235 (aka Three Notch Road) would come to a standstill, not because of an uncountable succession of traffic lights, but because drivers of two approaching cars had paused for a cross-lanes conversation. Such was the 1980s transitioning into the ‘90s in St. Mary’s County.
“It was a true small town,” says Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust’s new manager.
Coming of age in this bucolic era provided Greenwell with a personal reason to save what can be saved of the region’s natural resources. And for her, this means land and the many interlocking ways it affects our quality of life.
Greenwell graduated from Saint Mary’s Ryken High School in 2005 and in 2009 from Old Dominion University where she earned her B.S. in Criminal Justice. “I attended on a Navy ROTC scholarship, so my career path was set when I graduated.”
It was a career path that prepared her for working with PTLT.
In the Navy she served as a Surface Warfare Officer with commands aboard USS Nitze (an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer), Destroyer Squadron 28, and the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower. Her roles included training officer, schedules officer, and operations officer. After separating from active-duty Navy, Greenwell joined Prevailance Inc. in Virginia Beach as a government contractor working on a nationwide training exercise. During this same time, she deployed as a U.S. Navy reservist to the Middle East.
“I spent the first 10 years of my professional life being a true jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none” Greenwell says. “I learned how to manage complex projects and to build plans of action over months or even years. At the same time, I learned how to involve stakeholders and build professional relationships.”
Considering PTLT’s close work with landowners, county and state governments, and fellow conservation organizations, her experience is invaluable.
In the following question-and-answer session, Greenwell digs deeper into her views on conservation and how she expects to apply them for PTLT. (continued on "Read More" page)
Abby Greenwell, PTLT Conservation Manager,
sharing the love of nature with her children
2022 Donors to PTLT
Thank you all for your continued support . Every donation is a joy❤️
Support PTLT
2022Donors
PTLT Donor Giving Levels
Student: $25
Individual: $35
Patron: $150
Sponsor: $300
Conserver: $500
Legacy: $1,200
Heritage: $2,500+
Thank you to our Donors 2022
(Corporate Donor) in Italics
TRUST DONORS (OVER $5000)
Frank & Christina Allen
HERITAGE DONORS (OVER $2500)
Jackson & Hattie Webb
LEGACY DONORS (OVER $1200)
Sarah Houde
David Moulton
Richard Pectol
Toyota of Southern Maryland
Dr. Gita van Heerden
CONSERVER (OVER $500)
Coles Family Foundation
Evelyne Eshelman
Vivian Marek
Bob and Eula Prine
SPONSOR (OVER $300)
Butterfly Alley
Fabio Gali
Diep Nguyen-Van Houtte
Alfred Victor
Robert Willey
PATRON (OVER $150)
Corn Crib Studio & Publishing
Peter Neus
The Good Earth Natural Foods Company
Weight, Wisdom & Wellness, LLC
Len and Karen Zuza
Individual Donors:
Patricia Armstrong
Jon Chapman
Roberta Ross
Norine Rowe
Rose Thorne
Protected PTLT woodlands
attractive Heavy-duty Aluminum SIGNS FOR CONSERVED LAND!
Thanks to our board member, David Moulton, for taking the lead and developing and obtaining signs.
Contact abby@ptlt.org to get your sign installed on your conserved land
How to preserve your land for future generations
Benefits of a Conservation Easement
(Excerpt from www.mylandplan.org, American Forest Foundation)
Every conservation easement is a unique legal agreement, written specifically to fit your needs and goals. You can set up a conservation easement to:
- Protect open space or critical habitat on your land– whether it’s a family farm or ranch, wetland, pasture or forest—from encroaching development
- Preserve the agricultural value and traditional uses of your land by allowing for continued farming, ranching and timber harvesting
- Safeguard a historically or culturally important structure or area on your property
- Conserve land that has significant scenic, biodiversity or other value for the outdoor recreation or education of the public
Whether you place all or only part of your property into a conservation easement, you can expect to benefit from the agreement in several ways.
Estate tax benefits. A conservation easement that removes your land’s development potential typically lowers its market value—and that means lower taxes for the landowner. That can significantly reduce estate taxes when you pass on your property to the next generation, making it easier to keep the land in the family and intact.
Property tax benefits. By lowering your land’s value, a conservation easement can also lower your property taxes.
State and federal tax benefits. If your conservation easement is permanent, was donated—not sold—to a land trust for conservation purposes, and meets certain other IRS conditions, it can qualify as a tax-deductible charitable donation that can reduce your state and federal income taxes. The easement is treated as a donation of the development rights to your land. That means the value of the donation (and the amount of the deduction you can claim) would be the difference between the property’s market value if its development were not restricted in any way, and its value with the easement’s restrictions in place.
Permanency and control. Most easements are permanent and crafted specifically to meet your goals. Their restrictions remain in force even when the land changes hands. With the right easement terms in place, you can have the peace of mind of knowing your land will be protected as you wish well beyond your lifetime.
Although conservation easements offer significant benefits, they are not for every landowner. There are some important points to keep in mind when you consider a conservation easement.
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Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust holds conservation easement on properties in Southern Maryland where we purchase or accept donations of development rights on properties and impose other conservation-related restrictions on the land. We work closely with the landowner to make sure that easement terms are what the owner wishes – the conditions in the easement apply to all future landowners so this is the only way that landowners can be certain that the land will be kept the way that they want. It is very difficult to alter or terminate the easement, so this type of land protection is the best that exists. Other than restrictions that apply to the easement, the landowner still owns the property.
Learn More
For more information, read more by our partner, Maryland Environmental Trust (MET) .
Happy New Year!
PTLT wishes all their Friends, Partners, and Volunteers a Happy New Year! Thank you for caring about the future of OUR local land for future generations. PTLT Closes out 2022 Protecting 133.5 Acres in Central St. Mary's County with a New Conservation Easement.
Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust has announced the November 29th closing of its latest conservation easement: 133.5 acres of forests and wetland east of Leonardtown.
Aaron Leroy and Judith Fay Mast own the property, which is located off of Leonardtown-Hollywood Road. This easement protects forever a particularly sensitive landscape in the McIntosh Run watershed. It is also the first transaction between PTLT and members of the county’s Mennonite community.
The property consists of narrow, forested plateaus topping steep forested hillsides draining south toward 40.87 acres of forested bottomland on either side of Brooks Run, a tributary of McIntosh Run which feeds into Breton Bay, a tidal tributary of the Potomac River. The easement provides permanent forested stream buffer to 8,242 linear feet of stream channels, including smaller streams located in steep swales draining through areas of highly erodible soils and occupying the wooded slope and main stem of Brooks Run.
“We’re very pleased with this transaction because it involves extremely sensitive environmental conditions,” PTLT President Frank Allen said." The entire property has been identified by Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources as likely habitat for state-designated Forest Interior Dwelling Species. Simply put, the Mast property is significant for biodiversity conservation. A large portion of the site is in the state’s Sensitive Species Project Review Area established for rare, threatened, and endangered species within the watersheds of the McIntosh Run and its tributaries, including Brooks Run.” When Aaron Mast bought the property, the seller told him she wanted it to be kept undeveloped. With the sale of this conservation easement, the Masts have been able to comply with those wishes and still be able to manage the property for agriculture, forestry, and hunting, and have a place for their children to play.
The Mast property easement brings PTLT’s total protected land in Southern Maryland to over 6,250 acres.
The mission of the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust is to sustain the region’s biodiversity and water resources through a network of protected landscapes. The organization recognizes that forest and farmland and the region’s unique historic and scenic character are vital to a healthy economy and citizens’ sense of well-being. PTLT acquires land and conservation easements by purchase or donation. It has conserved more than 6,250 acres of land in perpetuity.
Check donations can be mailed to:
PTLT
P.O. Box 1955
Leonardtown, MD 20650
or donate online:
PTLT Awarded $2,217,053.00 to Acquire Conservation Easements
On December 1st the Maryland Board of Public Works approved an award of $2,217,053.00 to the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT) to acquire conservation easements in the Huntersville Rural Legacy Area in Northern St. Mary’s County. PTLT plans to apply this funding toward acquiring conservation easements on several important properties including a 437-acre waterfront parcel that will significantly help protect the environment and wildlife habitat in St. Mary’s County.
PTLT asks any property owners in the Huntersville Rural Area who may be interested in the conservation easement purchase program, or have questions, to contact us at saveland@ptlt.org or call 301-862-3421.
ptlt has a new agricultural easement!
On July 22nd, the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT) acquired a new conservation easement on the Webb farm in Valley Lee. This is an agricultural easement – the first such easement PTLT has acquired - through the MARBIDCO (Maryland Agricultural and Resource-Based Industry Development Corporation) Small Acreage Next Generation Program. This program helps farmers afford the land they want to purchase and farm. The closing for this sale took place at the same time that Jackson and Hattie purchased the property that they have been renting. The funds from the easement sale made it possible for them to satisfy the previous owner’s asking price.
Now that they own their farm, the Webb’s are excited to add their work to the farming community of Southern Maryland and plan to increase the size of their flock of sheep with a strong focus on rotational grazing and intensive management.
PTLT offers congratulations to the Webb’s on the purchase of their farm which will provide a lovely place for their young family to grow up.
It’s Time for a Timeless Approach to Tick Control
Let’s try controlled burns to curb tick-borne diseases - by Frank Allen
Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, Powassan Virus disease, Borellis miyamotoi disease, Borrelis mayonii disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Alpha Gal. All these maladies are carried by ticks. The problem (and the suffering) is getting worse.
All appear to come from the environment. A genetic study by Yale School of Public Health found that Lyme has been endemic in eastern North American forests for at least 60,000 years, longer than people have been known to be here. Yet, it wasn’t until 1975 that the first case of Lyme was “discovered” in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Alpha Gal was first reported in 2002. Since then, the number of victims of Alpha Gal has exploded. All these diseases are at a minimum debilitating and at worst fatal.
Why have these diseases suddenly appeared in the population to cause such suffering? There are a few clues, beginning with human activities, such as forest management and wildlife management.
Example of wildlife management: White-tailed deer almost became extinct at the start of the Twentieth Century, only to be reintroduced in the 1920s. In the last few decades, their numbers have soared, and as a result, tick numbers have also exploded, since the ticks now have plenty of food on the hoof.
Forest management: Before the colonists arrived, the indigenous population managed the land through controlled burning of the forests. This practice favored such fire-resistant trees as oaks at the expense of fire-sensitive trees, such as maples.
Recently the Nature Conservancy has undertaken controlled burns on some of its Maryland properties. These properties, in the western part of the state and in the Delmarva region, have since experienced better control of invasive plants, reemergence of natives, and greatly reduced tick populations.
Similarly, the Audubon Society’s North Carolina chapter staff undertakes controlled burns on its 3,000-acre Donal C. O’ Brien Jr. Sanctuary on Currituck Sound near Corolla. From late winter through early April they burn a third of its marsh grass in a yearly rotating pattern that allows wildlife to shift to other parts of the property. They consider the burns essential in providing food, shelter, and nesting material needed for birds to survive. The practice mimics nature’s renewal cycle aided by lightning strikes that ignite the grasses.
Since cures for tick-borne diseases currently range from difficult to impossible, it makes sense to reduce risk of acquiring these diseases through such practices. Strategic burns are much more beneficial than eradicating ticks by pesticides, which are expensive and devastating to nearby forest and aquatic dwellers.
“It’s time to consider reducing tick populations using an ecosystem approach with a combination of wildlife management and controlled burning in our fields, brushlands, and forests,” says Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust President Frank Allen. “As an asthmatic, I believe that controlled burning is one of the few forms of combustion that should have a place in our communities.”
Frank Allen is President of the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust. For more information on the controlled burns in Maryland, visit: Nature Conservancy. For more information on the Audubon Society’s North Carolina chapter burn program, visitPine Island Audubon Center. For more information on ticks and tick-borne diseases, visit: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.