Sunlight shined down on those who made their way through sandy drifts Thursday morning to a stretch of sand overlooking the Stackler property, nestled in Pipes Cove in Greenport.
Before the purchase closed on March 26, the property owned by the Stackler, Frank and Hardy families was the largest private holding in the Pipes Cove area, according to the town's land preservation office. Negotiations have been under way for several years to conserve this sensitive, centralized wetland area.
The total sale price was $4.5 million.
The Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program, a federal program established in 2002 that provides state and local governments with matching funds to purchase and protect wetlands, awarded a $1,996,822 grant to offset the Stackler purchase, Mr. Bishop stated in a press release. The Nature Conservancy, another major non-for-profit player in the purchase, raised an additional $325,000, said Randy Parsons, the organization's conservation finance and policy adviser. Southold Town's Community Preservation Fund covered the remaining portion of the purchase.
The Stackler property contains red-tailed hawks, ospreys and box turtles, among other wildlife, said Mr. Parsons.
Moreover, the property lies within the 250-acre Pipes Cove wetland, one piece within a 600-acre puzzle from Peconic Bay to Long Island Sound that officials are trying to conserve, said The Nature Conservancy director Nancy Kelley.
With the Stackler property now preserved, already-protected open space like the Arshamomaque Wetlands and Moore's Woods can be connected to form a large greenbelt, said land preservation committee member Ray Huntington. The open space would be used for such passive recreation activities as swimming and hiking, he said.
However, several unprotected properties remain in the Pipes Cove wetlands. "We're working on the estuary as a whole," Mr. Parsons said. "There has to be federal and state cooperation to accomplish this."
Longtime North Fork summer residents Patti and David Gerstung of Buffalo, who were walking down Pipes Neck Road after Thursday's press conference, spoke about the Stackler property purchase. "Since the 1970s, we used to go out on the creek and crab all the time," Ms. Gerstung said. "It's good to see [officials] are going to preserve it."
Another onlooker, summer resident Larry Severini of Tappan, N.J., said that the community had been "very vigilant" about seeing this purchase go through.
Additional high-priority parcels will be acquired through the joint efforts of the town's land preservation department and committee, Suffolk County, The Nature Conservancy and the federal government, said Melissa Spiro, the town's land preservation coordinator.