None The Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire Press Releases Search All Press Releases Eric Aldrich 603-224-5853, ext. 26 E-mail: ealdrich@tnc.org

An Enduring Gift for a Piece of Heaven on Great Bay

A family’s foresight and Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership protect 79 Acres on Great Bay in Newmarket and Durham.

Newmarket, N.H. — Oct. 29, 2007 — “If you lived in heaven, would you want to leave?”

That’s how Benjamin H. Miller responded back in the 1940s when his former engineering colleagues tried to pry him from his retirement home on the shores of Great Bay in Newmarket.

Now, the heirs of Miller’s Great Cove Farm have ensured that his piece of heaven will remain unspoiled for future generations.

The Popov and Wilmott families have protected 79 acres – including forest, fields and nearly 2,000 feet of Great Bay shoreline – thanks to their own generous donation and the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership.

Nearly 20 years in the works, easements protecting the land were recently acquired by The Nature Conservancy on behalf of the Partnership.

“Thank goodness this project got done,” said Peter Popov, Miller’s grandson who lives in New York City. “This really is a heavenly place.”

Popov, his two siblings, and his cousin, Mary Wilmott, own the land now and spent many idyllic summers there with their families, tending the land, watching waterfowl on Great Bay, and enjoying countless hours on the porch overlooking the bay.

The deal involves conservation easements on two parcels owned by the family. In one, the family has donated an easement that protects a 62.4-acre portion of their woodlot straddling the Durham-Newmarket line on Bay Road. The easement allows the Popov family to continue to own or sell the land, but permanently restricts development. The easement, valued at approximately $240,000, will ultimately be transferred by the Conservancy to the N.H. Fish and Game Department.

In the second, the Conservancy has purchased on behalf of the Partnership a conservation easement on 16.7 acres owned by the family on the bay side of Bay Road. The tract includes 1,860 feet of shoreline along a small cove and salt marsh on Great Bay.  The easement also includes about 9 acres of open field, a small man-made pond, 5 acres of old pasture, and 3 acres of mostly white pine forest. The Nature Conservancy will retain that easement.

Funds for the project come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

These lands have long been a conservation priority for the Partnership because of extensive beaver flowages on the woodlot portion, and shoreline and salt marsh along Great Bay, according to Duane Hyde, director of protection for The Nature Conservancy. The easements also adjoin tracts to the north and east that have been previously protected by the Partnership.

The family realized how special and vulnerable the property was in the early 1970s when oil and shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis proposed building the world’s largest oil refinery not far from this tract on Durham Point. They were one of many landowners approached by Onassis’ agents seeking to purchase options for the land for the refinery. After a well-organized grassroots outcry, the refinery proposal was defeated in 1974.

By the late 1980s, as development was rapidly accelerating in the Seacoast Region, the family started considering ways to permanently protect the property.

The family didn’t know what the future might hold as the property passed from one generation to the next, Popov said. “We thought that this place was too important and too special to leave in the fate of one person’s hands,” he said.

“Over the years, with development a reality nearby, it became clear that there would be continued pressure to develop the land,” said Binka Popov, Peter’s sister, who lives in Washington state. “And our property was especially vulnerable to development. It’s a relatively large parcel and it’s on the water. But we saw Great Bay as still relatively undeveloped and pristine, so we wanted to come up with some sort of a way to protect it.”

While the family wanted to protect the land, it took many years to agree on the details. They credit the Conservancy’s Duane Hyde and his predecessor, Bob Miller, for their advice and quiet persistence in helping the family with choices in those details.

“This is a beautiful place,” Binka Popov said. “And no matter what happens within a family – because things always change in a family – there’s something about the land that endures. There’s a phenomenal sense of peace you get when you know that the land endures.”

The Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership is a comprehensive approach to identify Great Bay’s most critical habitats and to protect them. With The Nature Conservancy as lead acquisition agent, the partners also include Ducks Unlimited, Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Natural Resources Conservation Service, New Hampshire Audubon, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Since 1994 the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership has protected approximately 4,800 acres of critical habitat around Great Bay. Local communities and other organizations have protected an additional 3,020 acres that the partnership has been able to use as match to leverage federal funding. The leading sources of funds include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, North American Wetland Conservation Act and private donations. A key player in securing those funds is U.S. Senator Judd Gregg who knows the Great Bay area well.

###

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.