Reservations must be made by Friday, April 21^st and are $25/per person. The evening’s menu will be your choice of Stuffed Pork Chop with mushroom sauce, Chicken Cordon Bleu or Scrod Florentine. All dinners include soup, salad, rolls, potato, vegetable, dessert and non-alcoholic beverage.

After our featured presentation we will award the door prize and the 50/50 raffle winner. Throughout the evening you will be able to participate in the Chinese-type auction of various prizes in which tickets are purchased for the desired item and then drawn to determine the winner. We will also hold a silent auction of items donated by local artisans and including the wildlife prints "Great Horned Owl" by Richard Evans Younger and "Saw-Whet Owls" by Don Whitlatch. The latter is numbered and signed. Both were generously donated to this event by Susan Dunbar.

Please fill out and return the enclosed Reservation form with your check before the April 21^st deadline. And be ready for good food, interesting conversation and a great time!

2006 Annual Meeting

The Annual Meeting of the Westmoreland Conservancy will be held April 26^th at 7:30 pm in the Municipal Conference Room adjacent to the Library. It is very important that members be there to participate in the election of new Governors.

Donations for Silent Auction

We are looking for local artists and crafters to donate items to be auctioned at our Spring 2006 Annual Dinner. Birdhouses, feeders, flower arrangements, framed photos, paintings and artwork are welcome. All donations are tax deductible. Contact Joanne Kendall at hjkpittsburgh@alltel.net or Shelly Tichy at 724-325-5523 or at newsletter@westmorelandconservancy.org .

Wildlife Rehab Workshop

It’s never the wrong time to think about the welfare of our wild neighbors. The Westmoreland Conservancy is sponsoring a workshop with Pamela Paulisick, a PA State licensed rehabilitator on Saturday, February 18^th from 9:30 to 10:30 AM.

Do you know at what time a baby critter is in need of help and when he’s actually being “kidnapped”? And did you know that many injured animals could be “rehabbed” and returned to their habitat? Pam will answer these questions and more. She runs Fawn Meadow Farm in Export and has agreed to take the helm for this workshop. Now we can all learn something about interacting with Nature. Please let us know if you plan to attend. Call Shelly at 724-325-5523 or e-mail: newsletter@westmorelandconservancy.org

Photo Shoot Outings

Within the Westmoreland Conservancy there is a band of intrepid photographers, eager to crawl over hill and dale in search of interesting things to capture on film or memory card. Even in the midst of winter there are breathtaking views and abundant activity to photograph. If you would be interested in joining us for one of our adventures, feel free to e-mail us at: contact@westmorelandconservancy.org.

Conserving Land in Pennsylvania

Dick Byers

On December 1, 2005, I attended a workshop at Donohoe Center sponsored by the Pennsylvania Land Trust Alliance (PALTA). The workshop was about conservation easements, a legal agreement whereby property owners can retain their land, but protect it from development in perpetuity.

The Westmoreland Conservancy Board of Governors had already decided not to get involved in conservation easements because of the requirement of monitoring the easement and enforcing the agreement. This is critical for the conservation of the property. Land trusts are among the few who will be policing such easements. If the future owners of the property do not comply with the law (the agreement), it could lead to expensive lawsuits to force them to comply, particularly if the easement agreement is not well written – and as we found out – many aren’t. It was strongly emphasized that the best way to monitor and enforce conservation easements is to have a well written agreement to begin with, not easy to do because of the varying nature of properties and the conservation goals of the owners.

To encourage land conservation, but take out the risks involved in the monitoring and enforcement of conservation easements, PALTA has produced some model documents to guide the writing of these agreements. The conference began with some history and statistics, but most of the conference dwelled on these model documents. After a long 3-hour presentation with no breaks, I still believed it was worth attending, even with my lack of knowledge of the law and legal matters. Should our organization ever desire to conserve a piece of land, and an easement is the only way to go, this workshop removed some of the fear and risk of getting involved.

PALTA now consists of 72 conservation organizations and provides a $5,000 grant to any of their member groups to help with the writing and transaction costs of easements. They also provide model documents for several types of easements. For example, there is a model for a Water Quality Improvement Easement designed primarily for water shed associations. There is an Agricultural Preservation Easement that allows land to always be available for farming. There is a Riparian Forest Buffer Protection Agreement for someone who just wants to protect the habitat along the borders of a stream. There are seven articles in this latter easement. Conserving the banks and habitat along a stream is tricky because the stream tends to erode and move its banks over time. The easement must be written so that if the stream moves, the buffer area moves with it by definition. This model provides guidance for writing that kind of agreement.

The general land conservation agreement model contains 8 articles and reflects the latest thinking and best practices. Article I concerns objectives. Articles II, III, and IV are on restrictions. Article V is on enforcement, VI on violations, VII on provisions and VIII on defined terms. Each of these is broken down further. Article 1.03, for example, covers specific objectives which could be water resources, forest and woodland resources, wildlife resources, scenic values or sustainable land uses. Article 1.07 is about beneficiaries. There is even an article on naming the document. Conservation easement means nothing to me. I prefer it be called a conservation land agreement. The owners can call it by any name that seems to fit.

The easements define three levels of protection. The highest protective level is to leave the land alone, no disturbances whatsoever. The standard level allows sustainable farming or forestry. The minimal level of protection seeks to promote compatible land use with a wide variety of activities. You can have all three levels on various areas of the same property. Anything permitted in the highest protection area is automatically allowed in the standard or minimal protection area and so on.

I couldn’t take notes fast enough to report all the details under each of these articles, but the models seem to have all bases covered. These models were drawn up after considerable study of the faults of conservation easements already in existence and the drawbacks have, for the most part, been corrected

There are currently 53 easements in Westmoreland County. Statewide, there are 1434 easements covering 115, 815 acres in 56 counties. The PALTA representative emphasized that this is the time to think big. The Growing Greener Fund was passed last summer making millions of dollars available for conservation. There are people and politicians out there who do not want to see any land conserved at all. They would prefer to see it all developed. Consequently, PALTA urges conservancies to build positive relationships about what they are doing. PALTA also urges building public support with news releases about what local land trusts are doing. Try to befriend developers. There are right and wrong ways to develop. One of the handouts, for example, showed a 50 acre piece of property with two development plans. The conventional design used by most developers used all 50 acres for a housing project. The conservation design had the same number of houses, but conserved 32 of the 50 acres as permanent open space that could be used for recreation by the residents. Developers can be wary, but many find conservation designs a plus. They are cheaper to build, meaning more profit for the developer and less maintenance for the municipality. The 50 acre plan, for example, had 600 less feet of paved street under the conservation design.

All handouts, easement model documents and brochures picked up at the workshop have been turned over to the Board of Governors president Mount Fitzpatrick.

For landowners who want to see their property protected, but not necessarily open to the public, conservation easements are probably the way to go. More information will be available at the upcoming conference for conserving Pennsylvania land. The 2006 Pennsylvania Land Conservation Conference will be held on April 28-29 at the Penn State Conference Center in State College, PA. Several of our members should attend, particularly anyone with conservation easement experience. Registration begins January 2 at http://conserveland.org/conferences/2006/conf05ri

ECO-FUN PAGE

Food Batteries

Meant for at least Grade 7-9 (age 11-13).

This experiment is edible.

An adult should be present.

Overview:

Create a battery from common foodstuffs, sufficient to light a small lightbulb, LED or LCD display.

Equipment:

1. One large potato or lemon.
2. Zinc electrode - a 3cm x 0.5cm piece of zinc metal will suffice. You can inquire at a local hardware store.
3. Copper electrode - Similarly sized piece of copper metal.
4. Copper wire - Sufficient length of wire to create a circuit from the zinc electrode to a lightbulb (or other device) and copper electrode.
1. Small lightbulb - flashlight or penlight bulbs work best. You can experiment with other devices such as LED displays, or time pieces.

Safety:

If no copper electrode is used, hydrogen gas is given off as a byproduct of the reactions taking place. Be wary of performing the experiment near heat sources or an open flame.

Though the voltages and amperages given off are low, care should be taken in handling the wire and other parts of the circuit.

How to do the experiment:

1. Stick your zinc electrode all the way into the potato or lemon.
2. Place the copper electrode on the opposite side.
3. Connect the small lightbulb to the two electrodes with copper wire.
1. Observe what happens!