Newly protected Dartmouth land links Buzzards Bay Greenway

DARTMOUTH — Land considered a critical link in a regional greenway has been permanently protected in Dartmouth.

The town closed Dec. 19 on the purchase of a 57.8-acre parcel on High Hill Road, directly across the street from the Acushnet Cedar Swamp State Reservation. Via other conservation land, the parcel connects the swamp to the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve, a collection of contiguous conservation properties totaling more than 13,000 acres.

"We bought this parcel because it was a particularly important one," said Michael O'Reilly, environmental affairs coordinator for the town of Dartmouth.

Conservationists have talked for decades about creating a Buzzards Bay Greenway across the SouthCoast, with a walking trail that goes from Fall River to New Bedford and beyond. In 1996, a professional forester mapped out a 12-mile Buzzards Bay Greenway Trail from the Freetown State Forest to the Acushnet Cedar Swamp.

"Opportunities to fulfill this vision are rapidly diminishing due to development," the town of Dartmouth wrote in a grant application for the High Hill Road property. The application noted that the property had been actively marketed for sale since 2017.

The town considered other parcels in lieu of the land on High Hill Road, but all of those parcels would have required crossing private property, using significant sections of paved road, or crossing wetlands.

On Jan. 17, Dartmouth received word that it had won a state grant of $232,000 toward the purchase. Town Meeting appropriated the purchase price of $400,000 in October from Community Preservation Act money. The grant partially reimburses the CPA fund, O'Reilly said.

Dartmouth Town Meeting in the spring of 2018 committed $10,000 for a feasibility and planning study for a walking and bicycling trail through the connected properties.

In addition to those goals, the town's grant application pointed out that although Dartmouth has celebrated a number of conservation successes in recent years, most of those acquisitions have occurred in the southern part of town.

Acquisition of a parcel in northern Dartmouth "would also solidify the Town's commitment to protecting all areas of Dartmouth — an important issue locally," the town said.