After nearly a decade of effort by various parties, Connecticut and other municipal and nonprofit organizations paid $2.8 million for a final conservation easement to protect Simsbury’s 260-acre Tulmeadow Farm from commercial development, authorities say.
Key to that was the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), the U.S. Forest Service, the Simsbury Land Trust, and town of Simsbury completing a forest legacy conservation easement on a 73-acre swath of the farm, DEEP said Thursday.
Each put up varying sums to pay the farm’s owners, the Tuller family, for the easement.
Half the payment, $1.4 million, came from a matching grant from the federal Forest Legacy Program. The rest were grants from: the state’s open space and watershed fund, $500,000; town of Simsbury, $280,000; and Simsbury Land Trust, $635,000.
The Simsbury Land Trust and the Tuller families previously completed the placement of conservation easements on the farm’s other 187 acres.
“The land is very important from a conservation perspective – including the fact that much of the land is within an Aquifer Protection Zone, which is a primary source of Simsbury’s drinking water supply,” DEEP Commissioner Daniel C. Esty said.
Public access will be granted on the property for hiking, and other types of passive recreation.
Located in West Simsbury, Tulmeadow and has been farmed by the Tullers since 1768. Products harvested from the working forest include beef cattle, dairy products and lumber. Open year-round, this working forest is a critical link between two large land protection initiatives and is a habitat for plants and wildlife, authorities say.
It directly connects 730 acres of protected land to the south, and 5,300 acres of protected land to the north.
Tulmeadow Farm is part of the Stratton Brook watershed, which drains into the Farmington River. The brook passes within a few hundred feet of the western boundary of the property and most of the 73 acres drains towards the brook.
