Support PTLT
Frank Allen, president of PTLT, and volunteer members attended virtual LTA Rally 2020, which offered an inspiring group of speakers and presentations. Follow link below for more information about this exciting rally!
Clifton Factory Property
A Brighter Conservation Future for Great Mills
Leonardtown, Maryland – On the day Isaias hit St. Mary’s County, Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT) closed on one of its most significant easements to date —77.51 culturally and naturally significant acres in Great Mills, St. Mary’s County.
PTLT started working early in 2018 with the property’s owners, Bob, Allan and Mike Cecil, to acquire a conservation easement to the Clifton Factory property. Funding came from Program Open Space of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
The property, now protected forever, is located immediately adjacent to the southern end of the St. Mary’s River State Park where the river flows beneath Indian Bridge Rd. It includes land at the confluence at the mainstem of the St. Mary’s River and two of its western branches. Mostly forested, a large portion of the property lies within a Sensitive Species Project Review Area, and much of it is Forest Interior Dwelling Species habitat. Its river sections support freshwater mussels, fish, and macro-invertebrates.
The tract includes significant cultural resources, including pre-colonial and early colonial occupation and industry. This property adjoins the Cecil’s Mill Historic District, a national historic district consisting of Cecil’s Mill, Cecil’s Country Store, the old Cecil home, and Old Holy Face Church. The newly protected land is believed to include sites that played a role in the early mills and factories of Southern Maryland which contributed to the area being named Great Mills. An early colonial potter operated on a portion of the property, using a rare purple clay quarried from the site.
“It’s not often that PTLT has an opportunity to protect such an ecologically and culturally significant tract of land,” said the organization’s president, Frank Allen. “The Cecil brothers showed remarkable patience, given project delays due to the pandemic. I’m appreciative of the many volunteer hours of work by Bob Prine of PTLT; Also thanks to Program Open Space’s Cheryl Wise, as well as Michele Snyder and Bill McKissick of the Dugan, McKissick & Longmore law firm to make this project work.”
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) .
PTLT thanks its corporate donors
By Staff Writer Phil Hayward
While PTLT is an all-volunteer organization, we still have fixed annual costs. Besides individual member contributions, we rely on corporate donations to help with administrative needs and to allow us to do the actual work of preserving land in Southern Maryland.
Our most generous support in 2019 came from Wild Birds Unlimited of Lexington Park and Waldorf and Corncrib Studio in Park Hall.
We greatly appreciate the ongoing support from the Good Earth in Leonardtown, the Port of Leonardtown Winery, and Two Hens Feeds, Seeds, and Bees in Park Hall.
PTLT thanks Dominion Power and Nature Conservancy for their contributions. Their support allowed us to pay for contracted work necessary for completing easement work and for long-term stewardship expenses.
For more information on how your company or business can support land conservation in Southern Maryland, please contact PTLT President Frank Allen: Frank@PTLT.org.
Fundraising success!
Thank you to Becky Benton, organizer of the March 7 immensely successful French Stitch Bookbinding class. The proceeds from the event amounted to a $1442.80 check to benefit PTLT! Wow! Thank you!
Carol Morris and Margaret Mackie of Art Artcrossings led a great all day class. The extensive preparation for the class and instruction were superb. And a hearty thank you to Becky's husband, Fred (who is a superb cook), and provided a most delicious lunch. Good Samaritan Lutheran Church scheduled the class in the Fellowship Hall for patrons and instructors. Thank you to The Good Earth Natural Food Store, Leonardtown, for the tasty and healthy snacks.
It was a lot of work, but well worth it. A lot of beautiful new books were created and 16 more people have a new skill. Again thank you Becky, for your vision and hard work and Happy Birthday!
Hemlock Preserve
About a dozen Friends of PTLT and Hemlock Preserve showed up for the workday and hike on Saturday morning. It was cold but dry. All the hands made swift work repairing the stairway to the beach. The group went for a hike in the Preserve afterwards. It was a very skilled and interesting group of people. Thank you everyone! Many agreed we should do more of this here.
the past is alive
An interview with Merideth Taylor, author of Listening in: Echoes and Artifacts from Maryland’s Mother County.
Shortly after arriving at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 1990 to teach dance and theater, Merideth Taylor set about exploring the backroads of Southern Maryland, camera in hand. Her forays would result in a 162-page book of photos and stories – Listening In: Echoes and Artifacts from Maryland’s Mother County.
Her book consists of brief entries accompanied by color photographs of one-of-a-kind built houses, stores, schoolhouses, churches, and barns – many far from their best years. Some still function, many are in advanced ruin, and some have since been demolished. Taylor’s stories depict imagined voices associated with each structure: children of tobacco workers, the young African American janitor at the schoolhouse at Sotterley Plantation, a moonshiner, a boardinghouse operator, and many more. Some voices are in the first person, others in the third person.
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Are we condemned to watch our birdlife disappear? No. Not as long as we’re willing to act. What can be done?
For starters, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has suggested “7 Simple Actions” that individuals can take to protect birdlife, such as treating window glass to avoid bird collisions, keeping cats indoors, and letting your land get a little wild with native plantings
In addition, if you own a piece of land, you can add “Simple Action Number 8” -- protect your own fields, forests or farmland. Loss of habitat is the most serious cause of bird declines. Over 90 percent of the land in Maryland is in private hands, not public parks or wildlife refuges, so private landowners must be part of the solution. The land you love can be protected forever if you attach a “conservation easement” to your deed. Such easements can be facilitated through your local land trust.
In St. Mary’s County, the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT) has protected over 5600 acres of private land working with more than 30 willing landowners and government partners. And if you’re not a landowner, you can still protect land by contributing to your land trust. That’s what Wild Birds Unlimited has done by supporting the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (PTLT). You can too.
