FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 19, 2008
For more information please contact:
Elise Annes, VP of Community Relations, Vermont Land Trust, (802) 262-1206
Tracy Zschau, Northeast Kingdom Director, Vermont Land Trust, (802) 748-6089

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The Vermont Land Trust, together with Geraldine, Blair, and Jay Moulton, The Freeman Foundation, The Forrest & Frances Lattner Foundation, and members of the Echo Lake community, permanently conserved Echo Lake Farm—the small, well run, picturesque dairy farm located on the shores of Echo Lake in East Charleston, the Vermont Land Trust announced today.

The farm has been in the Moulton family off and on since the late 1800s. Geraldine and her late husband, Earl, worked hard to piece together portions of the farm after they were sold outside the family in the 1940s. Together with two of their sons, Blair and Jay, they milk 70 cows.

The Moultons family generously sold their development rights for far less than market value. “We never wanted to see this land developed; we wanted it to stay a working farm,” said Blair Moulton. The proceeds from the sale of the conservation easement will be used by the Moultons to buy 104 acres adjacent to their farm. The family has been leasing this land for five years and has used it to expand the farm operation. If the Moultons hadn’t sold the conservation easement, the 104-acre parcel would have been put on the market and possibly taken out of farm use.

“Being able to buy this land frees us up from looking for land to hay,” said Blair. “Everything will be right here at home and we’ll have more room to raise heifers. If we didn’t buy this land we would have to sell part of our herd. Now, our herd size will be a little bigger, which will help our income and help two families survive.”

The agreement with the Vermont Land Trust ensures that the farmland will stay much the way it is. Farm buildings can be added and expanded in the current farmstead location, but no new houses will be permitted. The land will remain available for agriculture, forestry, wildlife, and recreation.

The Echo Lake community rallied around conserving this farm, which has 500 feet of lake frontage, over a three-month fundraising campaign. To date, 92 donors have raised over $89,000 for the project. “During a time when many aspects of our economy feel completely out of our control, here was a chance for a community to do something concrete and positive about their own land-based economy and their landscape—and they rose to that challenge,” said Tracy Zschau of the Vermont Land Trust.

"There used to be a lot of working farms around the lake,” remembered Nancy Engels, who with her husband Peter was one of those involved in the community fundraising work. “The Moulton Farm is one of the last. It's important to the diversity of the community to keep our farms. We found a great deal of enthusiasm for this project, and in these difficult times people did what they could."

The Echo Lake Protective Association provided invaluable support by getting the word out about the fundraising effort through their website.

Echo Lake Farm is situated in the middle of a large area of previously conserved land. “With all the conserved land around it, this land was the ‘hole in the doughnut’ that needed to be filled,” said Katie Bednaz, who also helped with the community fundraising effort. “It’s essential for a lake not to have too much development for the sake of its ecological health.” Not only was a working farm protected, but a continuous stretch of over 2,400 acres between the Clyde River and Seymour and Echo lakes will permanently be free from subdivision and development.

The farm has 110 acres of hay meadows and pasture, all containing high-quality agricultural soil. Managed forestland covers the remaining 50 acres, which is located on a visible hillside east of Echo Lake.

As an added protection, both Echo Lake Farm and the adjacent farmland that Geraldine, Jay, and Blair were able to purchase will be covered by an “Option to Purchase at Agricultural Value.” This legal tool will give the Vermont Land Trust the right to buy the farm at its agricultural value should a non-farmer seek to purchase it. If the Vermont Land Trust were to exercise this right, it would then re-sell the property to a qualified farmer. In an area where competition with non-farmer buyers could be fierce, this is an important component of protecting the farmland in Vermont.

About the Vermont Land Trust
The Vermont Land Trust is a statewide, member-supported, nonprofit land conservation organization. Since 1977, the Vermont Land Trust has permanently conserved more than 1,500 parcels of land covering 480,000 acres, or about eight percent of the private, undeveloped land in the state. The conserved land includes more than 670 working farms, hundreds of thousands of acres of productive forestland, and numerous parcels of community lands. This conservation work changes the lives of families, invigorates farms, launches new businesses, maintains scenic vistas, encourages recreational opportunity, and fosters a renewed sense of community. For more information or to become a member, contact: Vermont Land Trust, 8 Bailey Avenue, Montpelier, VT 05602, (802) 223-5234.

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