Orleans Trust Enters Final Fundraising Push For Cedar Pond Parcel

ORLEANS – The Orleans Conservation Trust is working to secure the last piece of funding needed to protect approximately four acres of land fronting Cedar Pond by the end of June.

The trust’s executive director, Stephen O’Grady, said the nonprofit is seeking to privately fundraise the remaining $60,000 needed for the $585,000 purchase of the 3.8-acre parcel at 32 Locust Rd.

At the May 11 annual town meeting, voters approved spending $175,000 in Community Preservation Act funding to support the purchase. The trust has also secured a $260,000 reimbursement grant from the Massachusetts Conservation Partnership Grant Program, a $50,000 grant from the Cape Cod Foundation’s Priscilla Alden Sears Land Acquisition Fund,  and $40,000 in private donations.

“For good reason, everybody loves these public-private partnerships,” O’Grady said. “Because everybody feels like they’re able to leverage their dollars, whether they’re the public grantmakers or the private contributors. They know that this project and this acquisition has been independently vetted by a few different grantmakings sources at this point.”

O’Grady said the trust has until June 30, the end of the current fiscal year, to secure the remaining money necessary to complete the purchase. He said the state Conservation Partnership grant is contingent upon all of the necessary funds being in place by that date.

The purchase would link the acreage to 12 additional acres of already protected conservation land in the area. The area is home to “towering oak trees and one of

the largest tupelo groves in Orleans,” the trust said in a press release.

Equally important is the public access to the pond that the purchase would provide, O’Grady said, noting that the pond is the fourth largest freshwater body in the town. Plans call for the rehabilitation of an existing walking trail that leads out to the shorefront property, as well as the creation of a small amount of public parking and some signage.

“We don’t know what the origin of that walking trail is,” he said. “The seller doesn’t know where it came from. But there’s a nice little path to the property, so we would formalize that and reroute it a little bit to a nice overlook of Cedar Pond.”

While some access to the pond currently exists, O’Grady said it is not well advertised and isn’t widely known about.

“There really is no established public access to the pond,” he said. “People in the know can get there via Cedar Pond Road, which is just a little nub of a road. It’s a dead end that used to connect over to Rock Harbor Road before Route 6 existed.”

O’Grady added that there would be “educational value” in creating better public access to the pond. There are two wetlands that stand on each side of the proposed trail that O’Grady said could be certified as vernal pools. There’s also a possible kayak launching site near the proposed parking area, he said.

The town’s community preservation committee, which oversees and gives recommendations on projects seeking funding under the Community Preservation Act, encouraged the trust to provide additional public access as part of the acquisition, as did the state Conservation Partnership, O’Grady said.

“I think the state grant and the town funding pushed us a little bit further in that direction,” he said of efforts to boost public access to the pond. “But it’s definitely something that OCT really envisioned independently from the beginning.”

The trust solicited donations from its membership via a mailing in April, which O’Grady said has garnered about 80 donations. An additional 150 property owners in the vicinity of the pond have also been contacted about donating to help complete the fundraising effort, he said.

“The word is continuing to get out there,” he said. “Hopefully [the approval at] town meeting helped with that, too.”