Cooperation brings state funding to preserve Dennis Pond

Sometimes preserving land takes a little creativity - and a lot of players.

The Yarmouth Conservation Trust, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Nature Conservancy, the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts and the Yarmouth voters all came together to make preserving Dennis Pond possible.

At the closing of the most recent 2.76-acre purchase on Dennis Pond this month, the town will own all 14 acres surrounding the pond.

"It's an intricate web of different agencies," said Brad Hall, conservation administrator for Yarmouth. "Conservation commissions, the CPC, the conservation trusts - all of these people are networking together going after these parcels and using the various state grants that are available."

Funding the most recent purchase took some fancy financial maneuvering.

Voters agreed to purchase the property at April's Town Meeting, but if the town actually put the money up front and took title to the property it would no longer be eligible for state self-help grants.

To remedy that problem, the Yarmouth Conservation Trust offered to step in to secure the parcel in June and provide the town with more time to finalize a grant application to the state. The YCT even offered to prepare the application on the town's behalf.

In order to pre-acquire the property, though, the YCT needed a loan and turned to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, whose new headquarters is just up the street from Dennis Pond.

IFAW provided a $500,000 no-interest loan for the acquisition.

"We didn't have the wherewithal to pay the interest on a half-million dollar loan and they were kind enough to waive the interest. They should be commended for it. This is the type of thing IFAW does that very often they don't get credit for," YCT President Don Henderson said.

The Nature Conservancy, a national conservation group with an office in Boston, and the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts agreed to guarantee the loan for $250,000 each.

The town will now buy the land from the YCT for $500,000 and the state will reimburse the town $250,000.

"Now the town can take title with only 50 percent of the cost," said Henderson.

While it may seem like a lot of effort for a relatively small section of the Dennis Pond property, Mark Robinson, the executive director of The Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts, says it's worth it.

"The reason all these agencies have been willing to help is the wildlife habitat of Dennis Pond," Robinson said.

"The Nature Conservancy focuses only on the most important wildlife habitat. Here on the Cape that means mostly shorebird nesting colonies and coastal plain ponds. Coastal plain ponds are these unique kettle ponds that don't have inlets or outlets and are mere reflections of the water table."

Robinson said this type of environment creates a home for some of the most rare and endangered plants in the world.

"Thousands of people a day driving up Willow Street admire the pond, but hardly anyone knows what they are actually looking at is a global habitat," explained Robinson.

He added that the Tufts family, which owns some of the land around Dennis Pond and either sold it to the town or allowed it to obtain a conservation restriction, along with the Nature Conservancy and IFAW all need to be acknowledged.

"IFAW deserves a great amount of thanks from the town for essentially making the town eligible for this quarter million dollar grant.

"This is their new back yard. I think they're very excited to know that their new back yard is such a global resource since they are an international organization," Robinson said.

He said the Tufts family has donated Children's Beach and Children's Pond and just two years ago the family gave the strip of land for the new bathhouse.

Hall, said this acquisition is significant for the town.

"It's a very large lake with no development on it. It's one of the largest on the Cape with no development on the pond."

There were plans for a seven-bedroom, 100-foot-long home on one parcel of the now-preserved Dennis Pond property, but conservation officials convinced the owners to sell the site to the town.

Hall said the town has roughly 2,000 acres of conservation acreage that is owned outright by the conservation commission.

Henderson said the Yarmouth Conservation Trust, through conservation restrictions and actual ownership, has preserved 235 acres of land.

"In terms of open space, Yarmouth has done very well," he said. "About 30 percent of the town [is open space]. Given the fact that Yarmouth is almost built out and there isn't a lot of open space available, I think we've done remarkably well as a town preserving open space."

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