Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: Land Trusts: An In Wisconsin Special

Original Air Date: Jun 14, 2007

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JoAnne Garrett:

These places hold the look of Wisconsin. Views, landscapes that we treasure.

Woman:

I know my dad wanted to see this preserved and protected.

Garrett:

But how to save these places, places that are privately owned and under pressure from development.

Man:

Maybe they're in a dash for cash and they need some money. So then you start selling off pieces or you start adding more houses to it and it changes.

Man:

We've poured more than 30 years of our lives into this. It would be almost unbearable for me to see it cut up.

Garrett:

Tonight, a look at one solution, "Land Trusts: An In Wisconsin Special."

Garrett:

Just off Highway 40 in Chippewa County is the Lewis Farm. It looks tranquil, peaceful. But this place is in transition, wrestling with the question of how to preserve the past and move into the future. This used to be a dairy farm, some 250 acres lovingly tended by Thomas and Doris Lewis. They brought their young family here, and for decades this was home. When they died they left the farm to their daughter, Sally.

Sally Lewis:

They left me with the responsibility of its future. For my parents, I just feel it is a big responsibility to be a good steward of the land. They've put so much hard work and energy into it, I just feel like I have to take good care of it.

Garrett:

There are memories to this place.

Lewis:

Catching frogs at the pond, getting the cows home for milking. I hunted a few deer out here. Missed a few deer out here. Am I supposed to admit that? Okay, I just did.

Garrett:

But most importantly, for Lewis, are those parts of the farm that form a special legacy. Take a look.

Lewis:

This is the prime section that I wanted to protect and preserve. I know my dad wanted to see this preserved and protected, just because of its natural beauty. I've seen how development is cropping up everywhere. It used to be around big lakes, but now people are even invading the natural wild pond areas.

Garrett:

How to save what her parents had worked so hard to conserve. Enter an easement, a conservation easement.

Lewis:

The word easement, all I've heard before is, you know, like for a driveway purpose to cross somebody's land, that you can get permission that way.

Garrett:

To protect her property from subdivision, Lewis got a conservation easement placed on the farm.

Lewis:

So then this yellow border defines the property line, as well as the easement boundaries. There's one of the larger wild ponds.

Garrett:

Lewis sold the right to develop this land. She sold it to a land trust and an easement, a conservation easement, that this land can't be subdivided or developed, was placed on her deed. In return, Lewis got some tax benefits, and the land stays as it is.

Lewis:

It gives me a peace of mind knowing that it's permanently protected from being subdivided and developed even after I'm gone.

Garrett:

Lewis worked with the West Wisconsin Land Trust for her easement. There are 55 land trusts in Wisconsin, each with different missions and methods. They're private organizations, that sometimes pair up with public entities. And they've managed to protect over 135,000 acres in Wisconsin. Vicki Elkin is the head of Gathering Waters, a consortium of all the land trusts in the state.

Vicki Elkin:

A land trust is a non-profit private organization that specializes in protecting land for future generations. They either buy land or accept donations of land. Or they work with private land owners to create permanent land conservation agreements on their property, so that these privately owned lands will never be developed. Once the landowner signs this agreement, it's permanent. So, it runs with the land, all future landowners are bound by the restrictions in that easement. It's really a great tool, because when you're working with the land trust to negotiate the easement, it's very flexible, you can talk about whether or not you want to retain a home site or two home sites for your kids. You can do that. You can include that in the easement.

Lewis:

The actual homestead is in this triangular piece right here, with the buildings and the barn.

Garrett:

Easements can be customized. Each landowner can specify what goes in, what stays out, what's to be done in the various parts of the property.

Lewis:

The homestead is going to remain the homestead. I can make improvements, build structures, do what I want on that residential zone that's defined. Around the buildings there's an agricultural zone, where my brother rents land from me and continues to grow crops.

Garrett:

Not only can she still grow crops...

Lewis:

This part was left out, because it has potential for a commercial site being at the intersection of Highway M and State Road 40.

Garrett:

Lewis' easement even allows for commercial development on a portion of her property.

Lewis:

Essentially, you know, I can still plant, you know, restore prairies. I can still cut timber. I can plant trees. I can do a lot of things. But what can't happen here is it can't be subdivided. It can't be turned into just a commodity where you're demolishing the landscape to wring out every last dime you can of its value.

Garrett:

Lewis still owns this land. It's not a park. It's still her property.

Elkin:

There's no need for public access. And that's something landowners ask us a lot. If they enter into this, is the public going to be able to come on to their land whenever they want? And that's not true. They can allow public access if they want to, but it's not a standard part of these agreements.

Garrett:

For Lewis though, public access, to at least part of the property, was important. It was a way to honor her father's wishes.

Lewis:

He had talked about creating an Ice Age park here at one time even. So I knew that that was his future wish and goal for the property.

Garrett:

Plans for this part of the property will allow for some public access, hunting, snowmobiling, and some no-trace camping may be allowed. Places as beautiful as this face enormous pressures. The Lewis Farm was no exception.

Lewis:

A land company has approached me at least twice a year with a little mailing and a business card. And now they've resorted to phone calls, but I had the pleasure a few weeks ago of telling them to take me off their list, because I've signed up for a conservation easement.

Garrett:

The farm was not for sale. The reaction of the realtors?

Lewis:

"Oh, no!" They said. And I said, "Oh, yes!" So I kindly asked them to take me off their list. It's just comforting to know that it'll always stay the way it is. A lot of childhood memories, like riding on the tractor maybe, or coming back to get the cows, picking blackberries, and building a little bonfire, and ice skating on the pond. Just appreciating the beauty of it. Just appreciating my parents. Even though they've physically left, they're still here.

Bill Rogers:

My grandmother bought our place in 1949. I spent every summer of my life up here growing up. I was here from the first week of June until Labor Day weekend. It's so much a part of me. My blood flows like the river does.

JoAnne Garrett:

The river is the Bois Brule in Douglas County, commonly called the Brule. It starts near Solon Springs and flows north into Lake Superior. The canoeist and landowner is Bill Rogers of Superior, a third-generation Brule River fan who summers here as much as he can.

Rogers:

It's just a real treasure.

Garrett:

The beauty and the bounty of the Brule has drawn people in for over a century.

Rogers:

We've had five presidents that have been on the river; the most notable one was Calvin Coolidge in 1928. They can go anywhere in the world. Why did they end up here on the Brule River? It was something about this river and the feeling that brought these people here. I don't know if there are very many rivers that you can say that five presidents have spent time on. It s pretty special.

Garrett:

It's special in large measure because of what surrounds it. The river is a rarity in the state.

Rogers:

In this particular stretch of the river, because it was privately owned at the turn of the century, was spared the logger's ax. Everything else surrounding this section of the river was cut, and when they cut, they cut everything. They cut up millions of lumber, and then they left, and fortunately this section was spared. These beautiful old white pines and Norways are the last remnants.

Garrett:

Tourists came and stayed, and built beautiful lodges and boathouses.

Rogers:

It hasn't changed. The windows are still the same. You know, the masonry fireplace, the screen porch, the log exterior. It hasn't changed at all. This particular lodge we're going by now must be in the fourth generation, fifth generation, and that lodge hasn't changed. Flowers change every year. The lodge has not changed.

Garrett:

It's an unparallel view of natural beauty and historic charm. And back in the 1980's it was a view in peril. Development threatened. In response, a group of Brule River landowners, including Rogers' mother, worked with their local land trust, the Nature Conservancy. Together the land owners each got a conservation easement on their Brule River property. The overarching goal of the easements was to protect this view up and down the river, the view of the river from the river.

Rogers:

It protects the view from the sense that I can't open up the property to give myself a better view. So I'm restricted. I can't do anything about it. Dead trees fall into the river, we're supposed to leave them there, because it provides habitat for the trout. So I'm restricted as to what I can do and can't do. And I think that's great.

Garrett:

The result? You're looking at it. Nearly 90% of the privately held property on the Upper Brule, nearly 5,000 acres, is protected by conservation easements. The rest is in state forest. The result is available to anyone with a canoe.

Rogers:

Views like this, most people don't get a chance to experience. They're seeing something that hasn't changed since the turn of the century. I mean, these trees, these beautiful trees, where can you go to see this? Even though this is private property, we're sharing it with them, because they have access to the river. And they have a right to it. So it's a wonderful experience for them to see what an easement can do and what the property owners are trying to do.

Good afternoon. Hello. That's a nice fish.

It's the future generations, and as a family gets bigger, you'll have some siblings that maybe don't have the same relationship with the river. Maybe they're in a dash for cash and they need some money. So then you start selling off pieces, or you start adding more houses to it, and it changes.

You can go to bed at night and know that, you know, the next generation is going to get up in the morning and see the same thing you do. They'll see the light coming through. They're going to hear the wind. They're going to see the herons out here. And it's not going to get bigger or busier. It's just a time that's not going to change.

Rick Dale:

This represents our life's work. We've poured more than 30 years of our lives into this. And it would be almost unbearable for me to see it cut up, to see a bulldozer move in and cut it up into something other than what I've made it.

Garrett:

Rick Dale and his wife Janet came to Bayfield County some 30 years ago and founded Highland Valley Farm.

Rick:

This is a real business. We take risk and we make investments.

Garrett:

It's a fruit farm with raspberries, and blueberries, and bees.

Garrett:

A fruit farm that's situated on what has come to be some of the most highly desirable real estate in Wisconsin. Bayfield, a tourist hub, is just minutes away. The lure of nearby Lake Superior draws in buyers. But those winds that blow across the big lake also wash across these farms, making this area unique in the state.

Dale:

The thing that enables us to grow the crops that we grow here is this unique microclimate affected by Lake Superior. Every wind carrying weather to us crosses water, except the southwest wind, and the southwest wind is always a warm wind. And so that really moderates our climate.

Garrett:

These small fruit farms are part of the economy, part of the experience of the Bayfield area.

Dale:

There's an ambience about fruit growing that's very attractive to people. It's the flavors, the beauty of the farms. They're gorgeous to look at.

Garrett:

But 30 years of building up this business has had a cost.

Dale:

Here I am pushing 60 years old. You know, truth be told, I'm probably earning what a beginning teacher starts with.

Garrett:

For a farmer's money is in the land.

Dale:

A common adage is farmers are rich when they die.

Garrett:

Or if they sell their land to developers. A lucrative prospect and an unbearable possibility for the Dales. Their solution? Call the local land trust. They worked with the Bayfield Regional
Conservancy and the Bayfield Township, which voted to raise taxes to help preserve these fruit farms. The Dales got a conservation easement. They sold one of their rights as property owners.

Dale:

If you think about property ownership as a bundle of sticks and each stick represents a certain property right, you can pull out some of these sticks or straws from the bundle and sell them on the market. For instance, timber rights. The paper company comes and buys your timber rights. You still own the land. The paper company now owns the right to harvest that timber, if you've sold that right. One of those rights that has been identified is the right to develop the land. And the beauty of farmland preservation under land trust, everybody wins. Everybody. There are no losers. The community benefits for the open space. The retiring farmer now has options. We still had six more years of debt load for the expansion and improvements that we've made. The buyout for the easement immediately paid down that debt. There was still enough left over to create a substantial retirement account for my wife and I.

Garrett:

The Dale's son, Chris, has recently returned to Bayfield to work with his dad and to someday take over the farm.

Dale:

This has enabled us now to take that income that might have been used for debt retirement and offer a salary to a son, who's eager to return to the land. Chris has come back now at an earlier age than anticipated, and he'll work with me for the next ten or 12 years.

Then within that four-day interval we'll go ahead and get some water here, because the berries are forming rapidly now.

And everything that's up here in my head and Janet's head gets transferred to his head and his wife's head. And they will be the next generation.

Dale:

What did you get for this field, Chris?

Chris Dale:

Twenty-two.

Dale:

We're in pretty good shape here. That's about ideal. Yesterday it was at 19. Yeah, this field always does have more qualities.

Chris Dale:

It takes a lot of pressure off in the future. I don't have to worry about anybody coming in and trying to buy property out from under me, or being in a situation where I feel like it's my last option to sell, because it's not even an option anymore.

Dale:

A future generation could decide not to farm. Maybe they don't want to work this hard. But two or three generations following that, there may come a young couple with a vision to bring it all to life again. And if the land hasn't been cut up, and the roads haven't been developed, and the septic systems, and the basements poured, you know, it will be here for them. The berries look great.

Dan Burke:

We couldn't let this one go. It was just too special of a place. This place was slated for 75 home sites. We had two weeks to do it. We knew what was slated for this property if we failed to act.

Garrett:

The place is the Bay Shore Blufflands Preserve overlooking Green Bay in Door County. Dan Burke was the president of the then small non-profit called the Door County Land Trust.

Burke:

It's one that our organization went out on a limb for six years ago, when the main piece went for sale for over a million dollars.

Garrett:

That's right. They had to find more than $1 million of funding.

Burke:

It was one of those periods of time where you have, you know, you don't sleep much at night.

Garrett:

Funding for some 300 acres of land.

Burke:

We didn't have much in the bank at all. And we had, really, a two-week period of time in which to enter into a purchase agreement with the landowner or not. And we decided if we can't take this on, if we can't protect this type of property, then we really shouldn't be in the land business in Door County, because this is what it's really all about.

Garrett:

This is what it's all about. But it was a torturous trek for the land trust. With a loan from a sympathetic local bank, a matching grant from the state's stewardship fund, and an incredible outpouring from the community, they did it.

Burke:

It's turned out to be the best decision we've ever made. And obviously one of the prettiest places in the Midwest has now been permanently protected. We're a stronger organization because we did it. In 1996, we didn't have any memberships. We had about 200 acres under protection. Today, we have 2,000 members and well over 4,000 acres permanently protected. These are community preserves.

And they're open for hiking. Many of them are open for hunting season, educational opportunities, of course, exist in our preserve as well as research. These are for the community.

Garrett:

Burke believes that land trusts are an essential part of the community, particularly if that community, like Door County, depends heavily on tourism as part of the local economy.

Burke:

That's really our story, is that there's places out here that deserve to be protected, and that will enhance the quality of our lives here, and that will enhance the tourist economy that this area depends on. There's not many places like Door County left in the world.

Garrett:

And for a local land trust to buy land outright costs.

Burke:

Ten years ago, we were looking lots two acres in size that were going for $20,000. At that time, we said we just can't do it, $20,000 is a lot. Well, today those same lots go for $250,000.

Garrett:

So how do they do it? They're creative. And they count on the local community. Consider this community, the little village of Ephraim. They wanted to save a place in Ephraim called the Anderson Pond.

Burke:

This is a gem. And this is exactly the type of place to help protect.

Garrett:

Fran Burton is a member of the Ephraim community. She's an author, a local historian. And she volunteered to be a board member of the Door County Land Trust.

Fran Burton:

Anderson Pond is unique both ecologically and historically.

Garrett:

It's 30 acres, the last remnants of the Anderson family farm owned by the same family since the 1800s, a family with very deep roots in Ephraim.

Burton:

It's a real part of Ephraim's history.

Garrett:

And the people of Ephraim wanted to save it.

Burton:

They had to a raise $225,000 to make it go. They only had a couple of months because of the time. There was a sunset clause, and the people of Ephraim came through.

Garrett:

The community came through in unexpected ways. Charles Peterson is one of the country's finest maritime painters.

Charles Peterson:

I'm showing a boat starting out.

Garrett:

And he lives just across the street from the Anderson Pond. The family often let him hike on the property. He knew it and loved it. Peterson has many fond memories of camping there with his daughter.

Peterson:

I remember in the morning, she awoke before I, naturally. The sunlight streaming in and she was whispering, "Dad, look." And just outside the entrance to the tent is a fox standing and looking at us. It serves many other families in the same way.

Garrett:

So when Peterson heard the community was trying to raise money to preserve the land, he thought he could help.

Peterson:

I suggested that if they were interested, that I had done many paintings of that place over the years, that they could use one of those. Make a print of it, and offer that as a token of appreciation for serious gift givers.

Garrett:

Peterson's print was made available to those who donated over $20,000.

Peterson:

We printed 50. And I'm told they have given out 38 of them, which is an astounding amount of money coming in.

Garrett:

It was the people of Ephraim, like Peterson, that brought the importance of this property to light, and used their connections in the community to try to save this, this green space, a green space with great meaning for Ephraim. It's just one story among many of land preservation through land trusts in Wisconsin.

Burke:

The evolution of local land trusts has been the shining light in the conservation movement over the last several decades. There's lands that ought to be protected right here in your own back yard. And these land trusts have really been formed with that in mind. It empowers people at the local level.

Announcer:

Major funding for "In Wisconsin" is provided by the people of Alliant Energy who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web. UW-Health, providing specialty and primary care for all ages throughout Wisconsin. Information on UW-
Health physicians and clinics, and on University of Wisconsin Hospital, is available on the Web. And Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, providing the people of Wisconsin with the knowledge and skills they'll need for the economy of tomorrow. Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, communities first.