Westchester Land Trust Fights the Clock to Preserve Open Space

By Michael Gold

The Westchester Land Trust is fighting the clock.

Westchester County is under threat of losing hundreds and possibly thousands of acres of land to commercial and residential construction.

“Roughly one-third of Westchester County is open space,” said Lori Ensinger, Westchester Land Trust (WLT) president. “We estimate that about half of that land is privately owned and not permanently protected.”

That means the land could be consumed by new home building or office construction.

The WLT is currently assessing dozens of projects to preserve the land, mitigate the effects of climate change and preserve habitat diversity and biodiversity.

“Once land is converted to commercial use, it is very difficult to convert it back to its natural state,” Ensinger said.

A big part of the land trust’s conservation push is based on helping to alleviate the effects of climate change in the area.

“We call it natural infrastructure,” Ensinger said. “Westchester County contains several areas that could suffer flooding in storms, from the Long Island Sound to the Hudson River.”

Preserving the land in its natural state allows Westchester’s towns and cities to reduce the severity of flooding from severe storms because the land acts as a sponge in soaking up water.

“Climate change is increasing the severity and frequency of storms,” Ensinger said. Flooding is the most obvious, destructive result of this phenomenon.

Also, forests and wildlands “sequester carbon from the atmosphere, provide refuge for species to migrate under changing conditions, and provide cooling to communities in the form of shade and moisture retention,” stated Steve DiFalco, WLT’s land project coordinator, in an e-mail.

The WLT completed a land purchase of 63 acres in North Castle in early November, with the town and New York State. The property sits by Byram Lake and Byram Hill roads. The acreage, with forest land, a pond and wetlands, will be permanently protected as a nature preserve, and feature walking trails for hikers.

In August, WLT purchased 125 acres in Cortlandt, which protects habitats for plants and wildlife. In two separate transactions last year, the land trust obtained 42 acres in Bedford. Additionally, WLT bought land next to Glenwood Lake in New Rochelle in January, which will be a public nature preserve.

The land trust’s criteria for purchasing or accepting land from private donors includes the acreage’s capacity for preserving corridors for wildlife, including everything from amphibians to insects, as well as trees and plant life.

Even though WLT has accomplished a great deal, the organization is not resting.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Ensinger said.

Right now, the land trust is working on a diverse number of projects, including urban parklands, wetlands, meadows, forests and working farms.

Ensinger said WLT would also “be pleased” to work with golf courses to preserve sections of their properties.

The WLT models good land management practices on the 1,000 acres it owns outright. For instance, it does not use fertilizer and only uses pesticides or herbicides if invasive species are spreading, which can cause the death of native plants and animals and harm biodiversity.

About 8,000 other acres in Westchester and eastern Putnam counties are held under WLT conservation easements. A conservation easement means landowners still own their property, but voluntarily agree to preserve the land they own in a natural state in perpetuity.

The land trust is very supportive of renewable energy projects, but Ensinger said these each need to be assessed individually.

“Not every parcel should have solar,” she said. “We prefer solar development for areas that are already disturbed and under-utilized.” 

For instance, an abandoned shopping mall is a good candidate for solar development. A wild forest is not.

Ensinger emphasizes that the land trust supports “thoughtful development, with preservation.”

“We’re not anti-development. We believe in balanced land use on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

Nassau County presents a case study in what Westchester wants to avoid. Nassau County, a quiet, suburban county 40 years ago, has turned into an asphalt nightmare, with sprawling networks of roads, constant traffic overflow and unbridled commercial development. The WLT offers residents here a way to prevent this from happening.

“The work we do cannot be done without the help of public support,” Ensinger said. “We are reliant on donors. We get no government funding.”

Impressed with the land trust’s work to preserve Westchester’s natural areas and open space, I recently made a small contribution to the organization.

“We are all interconnected,” Ensinger stated.

In other words, we’re all in this together, to help keep Westchester and Putnam counties naturally beautiful.

Pleasantville resident Michael Gold has had op-ed articles published in the New York Daily News, the Albany Times Union, The Virginian-Pilot and other newspapers.