Published: February 13, 2007 01:55 am      

ENVIRONMENT: Group seeks to preserve green space on city escarpment

A movement is under way to protect the last undeveloped areas of the Niagara Escarpment in Lockport.

The Western New York Land Conservancy wants to strike a deal with the City of Lockport giving it access to public land near the city compost plant and an old sanitary landfill on West Jackson Street. The conservancy would arrange for native grasses to be planted and the lands to be restored to a natural state that’s more hospitable to wildlife, according to board member William Broderick.

“We’d like to till up (the ground), plant native grasses and plants to attract birds and butterflies,” he said.

The conservancy has embraced the Lockport Area Escarpment Legacy Project, a series of potential transactions involving 220 acres of public and private property along the escarpment and Eighteenmile Creek, to try keeping the land free of development.

When the project was first conceived five years ago, Broderick said, the conservancy’s intent was to restore streams and forge nature trails connecting the escarpment with the Erie Canal trailway. Grant money for a large-scale project was not obtained, however, so those plans have been on hold.

The conservancy recently landed a $120,000 grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, enough to pursue some lower-key land protection strategies.

The conservancy would not try to purchase public land, but it would seek the city’s blessing to restore tracts to a more natural state — and limit mowing — to let wildlife flourish. The city would remain firmly in control of the land, according to Broderick.

“(An agreement) would not limit city movements in the future. We’re just planting grass,” he said.

The conservancy will also be looking to acquire rights to nearby private property through conservation easements, which limit development perpetually. Property owners who accept conservation easements can get income tax deductions from both the state and federal government.

According to Broderick, the conservancy contacted 12 local private escarpment property owners about the project in 2003 and six indicated they were interested. Federal legislation OK’d last year expanded the Federal Conservation Tax Incentive for easements donated in 2006 and 2007, potentially increasing the conservancy’s chances of recruiting partners this year.

Broderick and Patricia Szarpa, executive director of the conservancy, made an informal pitch to the Common Council earlier this month. No decisions were made but aldermen seemed agreeable to letting city-held property take part in the project. A longer-term effort to tie together the escarpment, nearby city parks and the canal trail would add to the city’s appeal, Alderman At Large Joseph Kibler said.

The Niagara Escarpment, a 35-mile forested corridor stretching from Lewiston to Royalton, is part of a larger, 650-mile long landform spanning though Southern Ontario and the Great Lakes to Wisconsin. It is recognized for large, unique rock formations, some 550 million years old.

Other states and Ontario are actively involved in efforts to preserve the landform’s biosphere, but New York State “is not on the bandwagon,” Szarpa said. The conservancy independently identified the escarpment as in need of saving and is going after grant money to obtain and restore the land.

Once access rights and/or easements are obtained, “our job is to defend it forever,” Szarpa said.

Contact Joyce Miles at 439-9222, Ext. 6245.