Hartford
If they’re successful, they’ll end up with a comprehensive map of every natural resource in Hartford, be it a vernal pool or a stand of elm trees, that could then be used to rank each property’s importance to area ecosystems.
Hartford Conservation Commission Chairman Jon Bouton, who retired recently as Windsor County forester, said that right now, town conservationists who focus their energies on a particular patch of land are making a judgment call based on their gut instinct.
Having a map of ranked properties could steer conservation efforts away from natural resources that turn out not to be as important as they seemed, and toward properties whose value is less obvious.
For example, “there are a lot of ecological functions that happen in these vernal pools,” Bouton said, referring to seasonal pools that provide important breeding habitats to salamanders and other critters before drying up.
“If one piece of property was near a vernal pool and that piece of property also was a place where there were fairly wide spaces between houses on adjacent properties (a condition that would allow for unimpeded wildlife movement), that might rank higher than another property that didn’t have a vernal pool,” Bouton said.
He said that, at a minimum, the data could be used to give landowners the benefit knowing what natural resources are impacted by activities on their land.
The idea of developing the comprehensive map has been in play for a decade, Bouton said, but it recently came to the forefront, in part because of a realization that the Upper Valley Land Trust, a major player in the local land conservation scene, is more likely to get involved in properties that have received a high ranking under an established town scoring system.
If a highly ranked parcel of land was threatened by development, Bouton said, “we would consider putting a program together and asking the Selectboard to spend something toward a purchase, or finding a lesser means of compensating the owner for allowing that natural resource to remain available.”
Right now, Commission Vice Chairwoman Karen Douville is heading up the project, which involves taking data from the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission and the Agency of Natural Resources, and overlaying it with local property maps.
Mike Morris, the Hartford Selectboard’s liaison to the Conservation Commission, said he was blown away by the sophistication of the tools that are being used in the mapping project.
“I was flabbergasted and a bit overwhelmed,” he said. “It’s very advanced.”
Mapping the resources is the objective part of the process.
The subjective part — assigning values to different resources — is likely to be trickier, Bouton said, because there isn’t widespread agreement on the relative value of certain natural features.
“Is the conservation value of a bog more important than the conservation value of 100 acres of fragmented parcels of forest?” he asked.
Douville declined to comment, citing concerns about raising public objections to a project that she said might not ultimately come to fruition.
Shortly after declining comment, at the commission’s May 2 meeting, Douville asked the commission to change the name of the project to the less specific “Land Assessment” from “Conservation Priorities.” The commission eventually agreed on “Natural Resources Review,” according to meeting minutes.
Speaking after that meeting, Bouton said the change had been made because identifying the project with a label about prioritization “was really getting ahead of ourselves.”
Still, he said, his personal goal remains the same.
“I personally hope we’re going to lead toward a way that we’re going to be determining which parcels in Hartford are the best ones,” he said.
He said public input would be solicited before any particular scoring system is employed.
Bouton said he hopes to have a database summary of the map available in time for the Conservation Commission’s next meeting, which is scheduled for June 6.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.