Press release by Western Pennsylvania Conservancy on 1 August 2025
Photo credit Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
On August 1, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy announced the recent purchase of conservation easements on two properties in Southampton Township, Bedford County to permanently protect 7.25 acres of forestland and habitat for rare species, and provide public access for recreational fishing.
The properties are located within the Hewitt Barrens-Lower Town Creek Natural Heritage Area, a globally significant ecosystem that supports a variety of special habitats and uncommon species. The forested areas on the properties host Virginia pine-mixed hardwood shale woodlands, a rare plant community that grows on dry, acidic shale slopes. These woodlands, along with a few sparsely vegetated shale barren habitats commonly found on Appalachian Mountain south-facing slopes, support a wide variety of rare, critically imperiled and sensitive species of concern in Pennsylvania.
Nearly 4,000 feet of Town Creek, a 41.6-mile tributary of the Potomac River and a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection-designated High-Quality Cold-Water Fishery, flows through the properties. This stream supports a critically imperiled damselfly species and a rare mussel species in Pennsylvania.
The forests, rare habitats and creek on the properties are permanently protected by a conservation easement, a permanent deed restriction available to conservation-minded landowners who want to protect important conservation values on their land, such as forests, rare habitats and waterways, yet keep the land in private ownership for agricultural, recreational and residential purposes.
These easements will also ensure current and future public access to Town Creek for trout fishing and protect a large expanse of special habitats in the Potomac River watershed from development and fragmentation.
“We are pleased to protect this expansive forest along Town Creek, so that this land will be permanently protected,” says Conservancy President and CEO Thomas Saunders.
Funding to protect this land was made possible thanks to grants from the Hamer Foundation, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation with support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Altria Group, and The Nature Conservancy.
Funding was also provided through the Open Space Institute’s Appalachian Landscapes Protection Fund, which supports the protection of climate-resilient lands for wildlife and communities. The fund is made possible thanks to major support from the Doris Duke Foundation and additional funding from Lyndhurst, Riverview, and Tucker Foundations, and Jack McKee.
Since the 1970s, the Conservancy has permanently protected 62,408 acres across the region through the use of conservation easements. For more information about conservation options to protect land, please contact the Conservancy at 412-288-2777 or land@paconserve.org.
About the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy:
The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC) enhances the region by protecting and restoring exceptional places. A private nonprofit conservation organization founded in 1932, WPC has helped establish 11 state parks, conserved more than a quarter million acres of natural lands, protected or restored more than 3,000 miles of rivers and streams, and assessed thousands of wildlife species and their habitats. The Conservancy owns and operates Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List and symbolizes people living in harmony with nature. In addition, WPC enriches our region’s cities and towns through 130 community gardens and other green spaces and thousands of trees that are planted with the help of more than 7,000 volunteers. The work of the Conservancy is accomplished through the support of more than 10,000 members. For more information, visit WaterLandLife.org or Fallingwater.org.
Media Contact:
Carmen Bray
Senior Director of Communications
412-586-2358, work
cbray@paconserve.org
