Last Friday, Nanticoke River Watershed Conservancy (NRWC), Chesapeake Conservancy and their partners celebrated the culmination of a 15-year conservation effort that crossed state lines and generations of family ownership, permanently conserving 181 acres of forest and wetlands along the Nanticoke River and Wright Creek. The recently established Henry F. Porter Preserve spans the border between Delaware and Maryland, linking protected lands on both sides of the state lines and strengthening one of the Chesapeake Bay watershed’s most ecologically significant corridors.

“The Nanticoke River Watershed Conservancy considers it a privilege to have diligently worked for so many years on protecting this precious gift to Delaware and Maryland.  We are grateful to the Porter and Burtelle families who were willing to consider conserving their lands, and also to our partners who recognized the ecological importance of this tract and who had faith in us to join in making protection a reality,” said NRWC Executive Director Marlene Mervine. “The important varied habitats contained within this site will protect both the land and its wildlife species and will provide an important recreational source for the citizens of both Delaware and Maryland in perpetuity.”

Mervine noted that this was the first bi-state protected land acquisition in the Nanticoke Watershed. She thanked the NRWC and Chesapeake Conservancy’s partners: Mt. Cuba Center, Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

NRWC began working to conserve the property more than 15 years ago. The effort involved negotiations with eight descendants of Henry F. Porter and was complicated by deeds and multiple inheritances dating to the mid-1800s. Chesapeake Conservancy later joined the project to help advance acquisition and funding efforts.

To secure these conservation lands, Chesapeake Conservancy purchased the properties on an interim basis while working to transfer the site to long-term conservation ownership. The initial acquisition for the preserve included about 138 acres in Delaware and 39 in Maryland, featuring upland forest, floodplain, old field, tidal creek and more than a mile of Wright Creek shoreline, as well as frontage along the Nanticoke River. Funding for this first step was from Mt. Cuba Center, Chesapeake Conservancy and private donations.

Adjacent to land already owned by the state, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR) was then able to purchase the 39-acre tract with Program Open Space funding, adding it to its Chesapeake Forest Lands, a system that encompasses more than 75,000 acres across six counties. The Maryland tract is managed as a sustainable forest and is leased to a private hunt club.

The next phase involved transferring the 138 acres in Delaware to NRWC. This land is permanently protected by a conservation easement co-held by the Navy and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC). Both agencies contributed funds for the conservation easement through the Delaware Open Space Program and the Department of War Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program (REPI). The REPI program provides funding to military services to support cost-sharing agreements to avoid land use conflicts near military installations and ranges, address environmental restrictions that limit military activities and increase military installation resilience.

The Delaware portion also borders state-protected lands, including the Nanticoke Wildlife Area and the Pete Gum Preserve near Seaford. Future plans include improving existing logging trails on the property to allow for hiking and nature study.

Just after this transaction, the Porter family worked with NRWC and Chesapeake Conservancy to sell four additional wooded acres along Wright Creek for conservation. Funding for this purchase was from the Mt. Cuba Center.

“They’re (Porter and Burtelle families) the reason we’re here. If you don’t have a willing family to work with you on a conservation project, you don’t go very far,” said Chesapeake Conservancy consultant Ron Vickers. He said Henry and Martha Porter bought the property in 1950 after moving back to the Seaford area from Chicago.

Henry F. Porter was the grandfather of the Porter and Burtelle family members. The 142 acres in Delaware will be known as the Henry F. Porter Preserve, and the 39 acres in Maryland will be known as the Porter Tract of the Chesapeake Forest Lands.

“These parcels lie beneath Navy airspace used for aircraft research, development, test and evaluation, used by Naval Air Station Patuxent River and the Atlantic Test Range, and REPI is one tool that the Navy uses to combat encroachment that can limit or restrict military training, testing and operations, ensuring military readiness in these areas,” said Capt. Mark Zematis, then Naval Air Station Patuxent River Commanding Officer. “The permanent protection of these lands will ensure any development is compatible with operations, expanding protected corridors of land. We thank the Porter and Burtelle families for choosing conservation.”

“As development continues to fill the peninsula, it makes it more important for land to be conserved for water to recharge,” Delaware DNREC Secretary Greg Patterson said of the first joint acquisition between Delaware and Maryland. “This is a perfect example of both the use of Delaware Open Space funds as well as the partnerships that are often needed to conserve large, ecologically significant tracts of natural lands, and DNREC is proud to play a role in it,”

“The Chesapeake Forest Lands comprise some of the last large segments of unbroken forest in the Delmarva region of Maryland, and this 39-acre addition helps further protect this valuable resource,” said Maryland DNR Secretary Josh Kurtz. “Our thanks go to the families for their dedication to preserving these lands, and to our partners for their diligence in bringing this acquisition to fruition.”

Kurtz noted that the 39 acres is part of 75,000 acres of preserved land across six counties in Maryland.

“The Chesapeake Bay is one watershed. Water doesn’t stop at a state line,” said Randall Larrimore of the Chesapeake Conservancy.