Deal protects land as habitat

Once in danger of being mined extensively for rock and subdivided for development, a 404-acre parcel in Groton is now being conserved to give the public a chance to see a pristine wildlife habitat rare in Eastern Massachusetts.

The property will remain a refuge in perpetuity for an estimated 100 species of birds and 250 species of plants as the Rocky Hill Wildlife Sanctuary, the Massachusetts Audubon Society's newest. Capping a 20-year local and state effort, the town of Groton recently finalized a conservation restriction that allowed the land to be donated to the organization. In an earlier agreement, the town issued permits to the land donors to build a mixed-use development off nearby Route 119.

The public is invited to a "sneak peak" guided tour of the sanctuary this fall, but a formal opening is not expected for another year or two. In the meantime, Mass. Audubon is developing a plan to manage the property, including a trail network and parking, and conducting a comprehensive species inventory.

Moose, porcupines, turtles, ospreys, turtles, and beavers are among the wildlife roaming among the rocky woodland, meadows, ponds, and swamp on this ecologically sensitive swath of land just northwest of Interstate 495. An additional 125 acres in Ayer, adjacent to the 404 acres, was donated to the Ayer Conservation Commission, linking and joining Rocky Hill as part of 2,500 acres of contiguous core habitat for wildlife.

Bob Collins, an attorney for developers David Moulton and Bob Lacombe, who donated the land, said Rocky Hill's wild-and-scene value, especially with its proximity to major highways and large population centers, helped build the private-public partnership in support of preserving it.

"You wouldn't believe you're in Eastern Massachusetts," Collins said. "One of the motivating things about this was the recognition this enormous piece of property has never really been touched. It just sat there."

Arthur Blackman, a former Groton Planning Board member, had advocated for the preservation for years.

"Rocky Hill is a real world almost untouched by humans, with living creatures and land formations I could have never imagined," he said in Mass. Audubon's announcement of the sanctuary. "It's a world that now awaits future generations."

Kathy Sferra, director of stewardship for the society, said it is unusual to come across a property of that size so close to I-495.

"It really is a gift," she said, citing the potential for major gravel and rock mining decades ago under a previous owner. In the late 1980s, just before the real estate bust, a different owner drafted a plan to develop some of the land now under conservation restriction.

The sanctuary gives Mass. Audubon a presence in the northwest corner of Middlesex County.

The protection designation came after cooperation of the landowners, Groton planning and conservation officials and residents, as well as the Groton Conservation Trust and Nashua River Watershed Association.

It follows the unanimous vote of support at Groton Town Meeting in 2001 and securing, by Collins's count, nine special permits, including state environmental reviews. The permitting and approvals took about a decade.

The mixed-use development off Route 119 includes a Shaw's supermarket, which is open, as the anchor business of the commercial component. The residential development includes nine affordable housing units, which are now occupied.

Collins said the housing plan also calls for, over three or four phases of construction, 38 single-family homes, 12 starter homes, and 24 units for people 55 and older.

Collins, land planner Bob Pine, and others had been involved in the property planning since the late 1980s. Collins and Pine drafted the development plan that won Town Meeting approval in 1989, but the economy faltered and the plan sat for most of the 1990s.

Collins, Pine, and Blackman are all former members of the Groton Planning Board.

Pine calls the conservation an example of disparate groups with different interests striking an agreement for the common good.

"In the end, cooperation won," he said. "This very important piece of property will be open to the public and managed by one of the premier conservation groups in the region."

Marshall E. Giguere, chairman of the Groton Conservation Commission, said the priority habitat protected would benefit some 13 rare species identified so far.

"It will be available for the public for generations to come," he said. "And, of course, wildlife."

The roots of community support and recognition of the property's ecological importance stretch back to the 1960s.

The turning point in winning supporters came in the late 1990s, Pine recalled, when Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist E.O. Wilson and others explored the property and marveled at the biodiversity.

Among the discoveries that day was an unusually large population of the Allegheny mound ant.