STOCKERTOWN, Pa. — Local, Northampton County and state officials came to Stockertown on Thursday to celebrate the county's acquisition of the Bauer Preserve and preservation of green space.
The 43.36-acre Bauer Preserve is the county’s 23rd park and expands its Parks and Conservation Areas system to more than 2,400 protected acres.
Bauer was permanently preserved via the Highlands Conservation Program, which was administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, in partnership with Northampton County’s Livable Landscapes Grant Program.
“We're going to continue to be a wonderful place to live and work and raise your family and retire. Lots of people want to retire here too. That's because they know our future is green.”Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure
The property sits just off Main Street and adjacent to Stockertown’s borders with Forks Township and Tatamy.
It includes agricultural production land, Little Bushkill Creek and a confluence, a private railroad crossing, a quarry and numerous active Great Blue Heron rookeries.
It also includes a stream and fencerow woodlands, an existing farm access off Main Street and an existing private Old Mill Lane.
The importance of green space
Officials celebrated the acquisition and its importance to the very fabric of what draws people to the county.
They included Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, county Parks Superintendent Bryan Cope, county Parks and Recreation Conservation Coordinator Sherry Acevedo and state Conservation and Natural Resources Department Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn.
“We're going to continue to be a wonderful place to live and work and raise your family and retire. Lots of people want to retire here, too."Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure
“As an executive, it's my job to balance economic development and job creation with land preservation, because you want folks to move here, and one of the things that gets people to move here is open space,” McClure said.
“So if you have open space, you can draw talent here for some of those manufacturing facilities. We know that open space is a way to bring talent here, and we're going to do that.
“We're going to continue to be a wonderful place to live and work and raise your family and retire. Lots of people want to retire here, too.
"That's because they know our future is green.”
McClure commended the federal government, DCNR, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the extensive work of county organizations in acquiring the land and committing to protecting it.
'Remarkable job'
Acevedo said DCNR was pivotal in making the project happen with the $730,000 grant it got from the organization via the Highlands Conservation Act.
That was more than half the nearly $1.4 million appraised value of the land.
“All the site that you see here that you can now see, this is their handiwork, that they have done. Remarkable job. We couldn't even walk through here; it was 6 feet high with the weeds and everything else. A special shout out to them for all their efforts.”Northampton County Parks and Recreation Conservation Coordinator Sherry Acevedo
She thanked those who helped with the land acquisition, including appraisal companies, planners, borough officials, title experts and especially parks officials.
“We appreciate all of your support and dedication through this process as well," Acevedo said.
"And internal departments from Northampton County Parks, all of us that are part of the team, our grounds crew, who has, literally, as soon as we closed, came out here and started working on improving the access for the farmers’ safety.
“All the site that you see here that you can now see, this is their handiwork, that they have done. Remarkable job.
"We couldn't even walk through here; it was 6 feet high with the weeds and everything else. A special shout out to them for all their efforts.”
'We're an outdoor state'
According to Cope, the site, as it currently stands, will generally remain intact.
“We'll be doing some small environmental restoration work, some riparian buffers, buffering out the land around the quarry that now holds roughly 30 rookeries — Blue Heron nests up in the trees," Cope said.
"And also, hopefully a future connection to the Two Rivers Trail, which is also lined by the Sept. 11 National Memorial trail.
“So, [it’s a] huge impact, both locally here in the Borough of Stockertown, regionally within Northampton County, and really throughout the Lehigh Valley and eastern Pennsylvania.”
Dunn applauded McClure, county workers and borough workers for their successes in preserving green space throughout Northampton County.
She emphasized that the local strategy has succeeded where many other counties have failed.
“We're an outdoor state, you know?" Dunn said. "We hunt, fish, hike, bike, kayak, birdwatch. That's part of our roots as Pennsylvanians, and it's part of our economy.
"And we need to understand that to really be able to do this across the commonwealth."
'Our vision'
Dan and Judy Bauer, who were at the ceremony — their family house sits on a 1-acre carveout adjacent to the property — said they were inspired to sell the land at a nominal rate to maintain open space in the area.
"With the preservation of this property, we are bringing that vision together. This property, the Bauer property, the Bauer Preserve, is going to be an example of how we are going to move forward into the future.”Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure
“We were really looking for a way to make it preserved as land that was open and free and worked in a traditional fashion, not something that turned into a bunch of little houses or warehouses or any of those things,” Dan Bauer said.
That sentiment matched that of McClure, who emphasized that such preservation efforts were part of Northampton County’s sustainable future.
“So we have a vision in Northampton County," McClure said. "And our vision is to fight warehouse proliferation with the preservation of farmland, open space and environmentally sensitive land.
“And with the preservation of this property, we are bringing that vision together.
"This property, the Bauer property, the Bauer Preserve, is going to be an example of how we are going to move forward into the future.”
