NORWAY — With assistance from The Conservation Fund, Western Foothills Land Trust has added 721 acres to Twin Bridges Preserve, extending public access on both sides of Route 117 in Otisfield, Norway and Harrison. WFLT closed on its purchase of the Edwards Mills property yesterday, Oct. 10.

This marks the second expansion of Twin Bridges Preserve this year. In March WFLT acquired 100-acre pieces adjacent to the Edwards Mills land: 20 acres in donation from Harriet Robinson of Otisfield, with Joan Cummings of Norway selling another 59 acres and donating 20 acres to the land trust.

The new preserve configuration includes two miles of frontage on the Crooked River, 47 acres of wetlands, bog shoreline on Little Pond, as well as deer winter and stream habitat.

“Protecting Crooked River has been a high priority mission for WFLT,” Kelli Shedd, the organization’s community engagement director, told the Advertiser Democrat last week. “It is a major tributary of Sebago Lake, which provides drinking water for the Portland region, and is spawning habitat for landlocked salmon and trout.”

The Conservation Fund purchased the property for $1 million in 2020 in trust as part of a transaction that included 25,000 acres of western Maine forestland known as the Chadbourne Tree Farm, in communities between Oxford and Andover. The mission of The Conservation Fund is to temporarily hold title to at-risk open space while local groups pursue permanent conservation solutions and raise funds for them.

It partnered with the Stifler Family Foundation, an anonymous foundation, Land for Maine’s Future, Portland Water District, an anonymous donor, the Open Space Institute, Woodard & Curran (through the Sebago Clean Waters Water Fund), Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, The Nature Conservancy, and OnX, The Conservation Fund to acquire Chadbourne Tree Farm.

“One of the challenges of these land protection projects is how to pay for them,” Tom Duffus, regional vice president for the Conservation Fund, said. ” We are fortunate in Maine to not only have the Lands for Maine’s Future program, but also private funding from individuals and foundations that really understand the work.

“WFLT will now care for the land into the future, so establishing a stewardship endowment is important. It’s up to members of the trust and local residents to support those efforts, and [the community] benefits by being able to get out on the land.”

Besides WFLT, other stakeholders of the overall 25,000 acre project are Inland Woods + Trails and Mahoosic Land Trust.

The next phase for the preserve, which will be called Twin Bridges Extension, is to establish a trail system on the property to support land, water and fly fishing recreation. An additional parking area and trailhead will be constructed on the western side of Route 117.

According to Shedd, trails will accommodate hiking, snowshoeing, fly fishing and hunting. Access is to be non-motorized, but WFLT is working with local clubs to maintain an existing ITS 89 snowmobile trail.

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