An effort is under way to permanently protect a Boy Scout camp in the southern Catskill Mountains. The Conservation Fund has purchased more than 6,000 acres of Ten Mile River Scout Reservation from the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America for an undisclosed amount. The multi-year plan would eventually turn about 9,400 acres into state forestland.
WAMC's Jim Levulis spoke with Tom Duffus, vice president and Northeast representative for The Conservation Fund, and Dick Davies, Scout Executive and CEO of the Greater New York Councils, about the effort. Duffus started by describing the property.
Duffus: The Ten Mile River area, the Ten Mile River Reservation property and its area around it, it’s the southern Catskills. It’s rolling hills, beautiful streams, forests, the blanket of forests that transcend all the way down to the Delaware River, and across the way is the Pennsylvania State game lands. It's really where the Catskills meets the Poconos, just outstanding. The environment is very wild river, the Delaware River, and the streams, the trout streams, Ten Mile River and other streams that flow through the area and hiking trails and all sorts of opportunity for wildlife to roam and for climate issues, carbon sequestration in these beautiful forests.
Levulis: Dick Davies is the Scout Executive and CEO of the Boy Scouts Greater New York Councils. Dick, what sort of facilities and features are there at the Reservation for scouting activity?
Davies: Well, we have three primary camps on Ten Mile River, the property. Two of them are probably what non-Scouting people would do as traditional dining hall type camps. Both sit on the sides of beautiful lakes. And then we run a third camp that is patrol cooking, where the scouts do their own cooking. We also have a small family camp where sort of alumni and family members of scouts can rent small cottages. So it's one of the largest Scout operations east of the Mississippi and pretty traditional, what you would expect that at a scout camp, but it's a large operation.
Levulis: Now I understand that The Conservation Fund as purchasing nearly 6,100 acres of the Reservation. Why was the sale deemed necessary?
Duffus: I'll start with that, I'm sure Dick will want to add on to it. We are in the process of buying all about 9,400-9,500 acres in total. We're doing it in two phases. This is a project that is part of a nationwide effort to conserve our forested landscapes around the country. We are losing way too many forested landscapes and properties to development and conversion to non-forest uses. And The Conservation Fund has developed the tools to be able to address that need at the speed of the real estate market. So this is a tremendous opportunity for conservation at a landscape scale, to working forests with some extraordinary habitats and incredible resources for the public. About 60 miles of hiking trails and so forth. But that is why we are involved here. We can move really at a very quick pace. Ultimately, this land is intended to become a new state forest. But obviously the state in New York has a process and can't move at the same speed that we can.
Davies: Yeah, I would say in terms of the reasons for the sale. You know, this probably doesn't come to as any secret to you or your listeners, which is, you know, COVID has put financial pressure on nonprofits of all sorts. And while we have an endowment, it's not adequate to sort of fund our ongoing operations. And so we were looking for a variety of ways to raise funds. And finding a way to try to monetize value from our three camps. We have two other camps in the New York City area as well. But as we got into this project, you know, it's really a perfect match up with the needs of The Conservation Fund or their mission. The property we're selling is essentially excess property in the sense that we're keeping the three camps that I just described. They're still going to be maintained and owned outright by us. But a lot of the surrounding land, which was put together 95 years ago actually, really was not being used very much except for some extended hiking. And so you know, we have a situation here where we can sell the land surplus essentially to The Conservation Fund. And we still have the agreement with them that will allow us to use the land for hiking and backcountry camping. So we could get some value out of the property, while at the same time maintaining all of our traditional scouting operations. So a scout visiting Ten Mile River this coming summer will not notice one change in the program that he or she experienced last year. And then at the same time, you know, we were very concerned, there was never really much of a thought or trying to sell the land to developers. It would have been opposed, I think, by the local citizens anyway. But we thought it was important to keep the integrity of the property together. And so we'll still have access to it. And ultimately, the public will have access to it, once the state gets involved. So it's really a win-win for us and I think for the conservation movement. We thought as a leading environmental organization, telling sort of pristine forest land to developers just was not part of our sort of ethos. And so The Conservation Fund turned out to be a marvelous partner. And Tom himself is an Eagle Scout, so he understood exactly what we were trying to accomplish.
Levulis: And in terms of the stage of the process that this is in, you know, we talked about the first phase, the second phase, and encompassing about 9,400 acres in all. Where in the process are you?
Duffus: Yeah, so we have phased it. Two phases. And as you know we closed on the first phase just a week or so ago. The second phase, we hope will close by the end of this year. There's some structural components to the property that need to be addressed. And then we'll be able to close on that and move forward. And at that point, The Conservation Fund would own the entirety of the property, and that is all but the camps that are being retained by the Scouts. And as Dick said, it's a real win-win situation.
Davies: You we had some work to do in the sense that there were former rifle ranges from years ago that had been abandoned. But there are certain environmental cleanup processes you have to go through to make sure they're acceptable to a new buyer, just as you're selling a home. You know, removing an underground fuel tank, those sorts of things have to be done for the new buyer. And so we're in the process of finishing those items up. Tom, of course, would like to close on phase two as we as soon as possible, but we have a little bit of remaining work to do.
Levulis: Dick mentioned the uses that the Scouts will continue to use this region for. Tom, you mentioned the goal is to have this area become state forest land. In the interim, while The Conservation Fund owns the majority of the land, would the public be able to use that? How would that work?
Duffus: Yeah, there's a very large area down on the Delaware River and just back from the river that is open to the public. There's a fantastic hiking trail called the Tusten Mountain Trail. The National Park Service uses parts of the property on the Delaware River for rafting landing and takeoff. And there's really a wonderful environment on there that is open and available to the public. The rest of the property, while The Conservation Fund owns and manages this land probably for the next you know three to five years, we will maintain the relationship that the Scouts have had with that land and also local hunting clubs that have been using the land. But when we convey, The Conservation Fund conveys the property to the state of New York as a new state forest, at that point, the property will be open in a very thoughtful, planned way to the public. It's very complicated property from a natural resource standpoint, and we in the state, and the Scouts want to make sure that the public uses are done in a very thoughtful, planned way that's compatible with the environment. But there's great excitement in seeing this. It should be noted that the property was put together by Franklin Roosevelt in 1927, and has been just the way it is pretty much since then. So there is a change afoot here, which is basically to see no change really happen, other than eventually more enhanced public use of the property. It's just an exciting, exciting opportunity.
Davies: I mean, the questions we've gotten are like, ‘will the state be putting in campgrounds and things and really developing the site?’ And that is, our understanding would not be the intention.
Duffus: No, I don't believe that's the intention. Having done a lot of work with the state of New York, here as The Conservation Fund, I know they have a very, very good sound, careful land management and recreation planning process that they'll go through. They need to, you know, learn the land and build relationships locally and with the Scouts, who will always be their neighbor and go through that process and then figure out what really makes the most sense. But, you know, state reforestation areas, as they're called technically, started in the river after the Dust Bowl era I think in the 30s, to really take properties, large forested properties and put them under perpetual sound, sustainable forestry, but also for public use, and hunting and so forth. But they have to do that in a very careful way. And that planning process will begin shortly, I'm sure.
Levulis: And Dick, the anticipation is that once the land is part of a state forest, the Scouts will still be able to access the camps as you laid out?
Davies: Yeah, it won't be as exclusive that we'll have with The Conservation Fund, but we'll still along with the public be able to hike the trails. And we've had discussions preliminary with the state of, you know, making an offer to maintain the hiking trails. They're very special to our scouts. And Tom probably knows more about this, but there are cooperative arrangements between volunteer groups and the state in terms of maintaining certain state forest property. So, you know, we will have the option, we believe, of being able to continue to maintain the trails to be determined in the future. But we're anticipating that we'll be able to continue to support the state in that way.
Duffus: Yeah, and I heard about that, again, yesterday, Dick. I'm on the property today. And I was with the really wonderful, capable, Regional Director for DEC, Kelly Turturro. And we did talk about that. It's a real, real benefit to the state as well as to the Scouts. They call them stewardship agreements. But this is a big bite to swallow. It's a very large property. It's one of the largest, un-conserved, now it's partially conserved, but one of the largest vulnerable big properties in the Delaware watershed. And we're taking this on. It's what we do as The Conservation Fund, we do this kind of large scale forest, pre-acquisition all the time. For the state in this particular region this is a brand new opportunity, and they're going to have to, you know, really gear up and, and do it, they want to do it, right. It's a very, very large responsibility on behalf of the public. So we're very encouraged about that.
Davies: As you can imagine, selling Scout property or part of a camp even, is a very emotional process for our volunteers. Because you know, the summer camp experience is such an important element of their Scouting experience and their Scouting memories, and are in our last briefing for our volunteers. One gentleman said, you know, the two questions I keep hearing again and again, will we be able to hike the Red Dot Trail, which is the major trail goes around the property, and will we be able to hike to the overlook of the Delaware River that is known as Indian Cliffs? And as long as we can say yes, and yes, then everybody is sort of happy. They want to be able to protect that legacy for the Scouts of the future.
