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Date: 7/25/2023
LEVERETT — Bruce Spencer, a local landowner and forestry expert, recently offered the Town of Leverett 147 acres of prime timberland to serve as a town forest. The gift would come with costs and responsibilities, so last week the Conservation Commission and Selectboard discussed the possible drawbacks to accepting the gift.
The decision will ultimately be made by residents next spring at Town Meeting. In the meantime, Tom Hankinson, chair of the Selectboard, is cautiously optimistic the stumbling blocks will prove to be minor.
“Theres’s nothing hiding in the shadows, as far as I know,” Hankinson said in a recent telephone conversation. “The idea of Bruce donating this to someone, for essentially the same purpose, has been around for awhile.”
Hankinson recalled that Spencer offered the parcel to the Rattlesnake Gutter Trust some years back. Eva Gibavic, associated with the RGT, clarified that Spencer hoped to put the land under management by both the trust and the town. The pandemic put the project on the back burner. During that time, Gibavic said, Spencer realized he wanted the land used specifically as a town forest and withdrew it from consideration by the trust.
Hankinson did acknowledge that careful consideration was in order for a few reasons.
The property, located at 353 North Leverett Rd., is under an easement with the Franklin Land Trust. The property is reached by crossing a small bridge and following a dirt road to a clearing that Spencer used as a log yard. The easement, and maintaining the bridge and dirt road, are concerns and responsibilities the town will need to deal with.
“I don’t think everybody thinks this is a good idea, when I look at that, and I see there’s the driveway access going through the property, I think the bridge and the easement access are two big red flags that I would recommend a deeper investigation of, before moving ahead…[and] whoever is living in that house, and there’s a town forest, that right there might stop the whole thing,” said Jono Neiger, a member of the Conservation Commission.
Hankinson characterized the structure on the property as a cabin that hasn’t been maintained for years. No one occupies the cabin. The chair of the Selectboard counted as real concerns, though, the costs of maintaining the road and bridge.
“The town of Leverett owns nine bridges,” Hankinson said. “They can be a drag on the economy of the town, over the course of time…[and] we would have to maintain the dirt road…up there, to what would probably become a parking area.”
Spencer, according to Hankinson, was a forestry expert highly respected throughout the state. Now retired, discussion revealed that Spencer expects another trained forester to continue implementing the plan he used to manage the property. A trained forester would have to be paid, though some of that expense may be avoided if the town creates a committee to oversee the management of the land.
Seth Heminway, a member of the Conservation Commission, was quite excited about the prospect of Spencer’s acres serving as a Leverett town forest. During the Conservation Commission’s discussion on July 17 he said most towns create a committee to oversee town forests. A member of the ConCom should be on that committee.
“We probably want one commission member who would be part of that oversight group,” Heminway said. The group would oversee “whomever would be doing the actual work out in the woods…We certainly want to have awareness of what’s going on with it.”
Heminway recommended contacting committees that oversee forests owned by other towns.
According to Hankinson, Spencer primarily harvested cordwood from the acres, as well as saw logs for lumber. He said a deciding factor would be if the income from the land would cover the associated expenses. Hankinson hoped to get some idea of what those numbers may be by contacting other towns, including Warwick, which have a productive town forest.
Hankinson remains optimistic the conditions that come with Spencer’s acres are manageable. The task now is gathering the facts to present to residents, who will make the decision to accept the windfall or not.
“We need to come up with a rough cost analysis [and] collect the information necessary to present to the town,” Hankinson said. “I’m enthusiastic to go ahead and find the information because I think it could be a great idea.”