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For Immediate Release: December 8, 2009 For more information, please contact:
Elise Annes, Vermont Land Trust, (802) 262-1206 |
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When Derby resident Michael Dunn died in 2007, he left behind a fortune and a spectacular piece of property on Lake Memphremagog. The property, the outstanding 480-acre Eagle Point in Derby, was bequeathed to the Federal government under the terms of the Michael Dunn Trust, as recently announced by the Community Financial Services Group, trustee and executor of the Dunn estate. Eagle Point was left to the U.S. government under the condition that the land is held for at least 50 years in an open state and is available for use by hikers and campers. The Trust document also stipulates that if the U. S. Government does not agree to these conditions within three years of the date of Dunn’s death, the property will be sold and the proceeds will go the beneficiary of Dunn’s financial fortune—the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which received $10 million from the Dunn Estate earlier this fall. The three-year deadline will be up on September 1, 2010. To help facilitate this process, the Vermont Land Trust recently submitted a written proposal to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service requesting that they accept title to the property. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources supports U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ownership. “You would think that giving the government over 400 acres of prime lakefront property in such a beautiful area would be a simple task,” said Mark Frederick, president & CEO of Community Financial Services Group. “However, it’s much more involved than that, and we are very fortunate to work with the Vermont Land Trust and Downs, Rachlin, Martin, counsel to the Dunn Trust, to help facilitate the gift. The Vermont Land Trust was able to bring the right people to the table from several government entities to help facilitate the property transfer.” Born and raised in Montreal, Dunn moved in 1978 to a property that his grandmother had bought as a vacation home, just across the Canadian border. “Michael was a collector of art, watches and land,” said Stephen Marsh, the president and CEO of the Derby-based Community National Bank and a friend of Dunn’s who served on six nonprofit boards with him. “When it came to his land he always had an interest in wildlife and in making it available for hiking, hunting, and fishing. Michael didn’t say much about what he had but, one day, on a car ride together, Michael told me that he hoped to leave the land to the government so people could continue to enjoy it.” Eagle Point sits on the Vermont-Quebec border, includes 260 acres of wetland, woodland, and riparian land; 220 acres of agricultural land; and over a mile of frontage on scenic Lake Memphremagog. The frontage on the 27-mile-long lake has areas suitable for public access, both from land and from the lake. The land provides for an unusual diversity of game species and other wildlife. In addition, there are productive agricultural soils associated with a lake-influenced micro-climate that tends to extend the growing season. “This is a great opportunity for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to conserve important wildlife habitat in partnership with the State of Vermont,” said Janet Kennedy, refuge supervisor for the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We are preparing a preliminary project proposal seeking approval from our Director to begin the formal planning process; that process will include an opportunity for public comment.” There is a parallel provision on 400 acres of Canadian land owned by Dunn that would benefit the Canadian government and Province of Quebec. The Canadian government has declined the property; however, the Quebec Department of Natural Resources and Wildlife has expressed keen preliminary interest accepting its real estate distribution. There is much potential for cross-border conservation management. “This conservation opportunity is especially important because it provides another project for Vermont to work in partnership with Province of Quebec on land management issues in the Lake Memphremagog watershed,” said Jonathan Wood, Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources. The Vermont Land Trust expects formal confirmation of that interest by the end of 2009. Federal Ownership, Local Management
Once this land is in public ownership, the Vermont Land Trust and the Agency of Natural Resources would engage the community to determine how the property might serve recreational needs, which may include a mix of light, location-specific public uses, such as canoe/kayak access and camping, perhaps in conjunction with the Northern Forest Canoe Trail that passes through Lake Memphremagog. “This conservation opportunity is important for the state of Vermont to provide recreational access for local area residents to one of Vermont’s major lakes,” said Jonathan Wood, Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources. “Michael Dunn offered a spectacular legacy for Vermonters and the nation,” said Gil Livingston, president of the Vermont Land Trust. “The Vermont Land Trust has completed distinguished conservation projects across the state, but based on my 19 years experience at VLT, I consider this opportunity to be extraordinarily unique. Protecting land like this—with its combined richness of natural and recreational resources—would normally take VLT many years.” While Federal ownership is a condition of the Michael Dunn Trust, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources is interested in assuming an active management role. The agency has a substantial land ownership and management presence in the immediate area with the ecologically important South Bay Wildlife Management Area. Agency staff are quite familiar with both the management prescriptions applicable to National Wildlife Refuges, and the habitats and natural communities that prevail on the property. The agency is engaged in ongoing collaboration with respect to Vermont’s two existing refuges, the Conte and Mississquoi National Wildlife Refuges, and staff members have relationships in the greater Derby community that would help facilitate effective stewardship of the Dunn property’s natural resources. The Specifics of the Eagle Point
Property Natural Resources A 100-acre wetland associated with Hall’s Creek (a.k.a Carter’s Creek) hosts a large, beautiful intermediate fen and a multi-layered, sweet-gale shoreline swamp (both rare natural communities in Vermont). There is also a riverine floodplain forest and two large areas of red-maple–northern-white-cedar swamp, each of statewide significance, along with several rare and uncommon plants. The approximately 228 acres of diverse wetlands (including the Hall’s Creek wetland) provide potential habitat for many Vermont Species of Greatest Conservation Need including two waterfowl species, five marsh birds, two passerines, four raptors, three aquatic mammals, four small mammals, two salamanders, and many potential invertebrates. Taken together, the American and Canadian property owned by Dunn comprises two miles of Lake Memphremagog frontage, of which two-thirds of a mile is densely forested natural lakeshore in Canada, and nearly a mile and a half is Vermont shoreline that includes undisturbed, dense forest; hayfields with a narrow buffer of trees between the mouth of Hall’s Creek and Eagle Point; and forested wetland near the mouth of the Johns River. It also appears that the mature hemlock forest on the lakeshore north of Eagle Point is very likely a previously unmapped deer wintering area, considered critical habitat in Vermont. The property likely hosts a variety of furbearing species including muskrat, mink, and northern river otter, and the characteristics of the property are consistent with the habitat needs of bobcat. About the Vermont Land Trust .
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