Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust

Easement Acquisition: PTLT continued to acquire new easements to protect property in Southern Maryland in perpetuity. Four new easements were established in 2023 protecting 183.52 additional acres of land and bringing our total land protected to 6461.5 acres. One of these easements was funded strictly with grants from the State of Maryland's Rural Legacy (RL) Program and from St. Mary's County. Two of the easements used funding from the RL Program and the Department of Defense Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program. The final easement was a landowner donation and is strictly a forest conservation easement. Historic Saint Mary's City needed to relocate their sailing program. To make this possible, tree clearing was necessary within the critical zone where regulations are stringent. This means that a grove of trees must be planted - and maintained - nearby on the waterfront as mitigation. A neighbor, and friend of HSMC generously offered to plant such a grove, and to maintain it. PTLT is responsible to ensure that the grove planting meets regulations and is preserved forever. PTLT continued working with landowners to place easements on properties within the Huntersville Rural Legacy Area in mid St. Mary's County Maryland. A 413 acre property scheduled to close in December 2023 actually closed in February 2024.

Easement Compliance: Due in part to our thorough monitoring program, PTLT has had few easement compliance issues and tries hard to resolve these amicably with landowners. Our volunteer board members investigate, document, and resolve each issue. PTLT holds reserve funds in an endowment account and holds insurance to address any violations that would require legal or technical expertise. PTLT continues to follow up with landowners on potential easement issues to help them address emerging problems in a timely manner. PTLT has adopted a new policy of requiring easement properties to be free of dumping prior to closing. This ensures our monitors can spot dumping changes on the properties easier. As part of easement compliance, PTLT is also keeping notes on inland erosion which has become an increasing issue in the Huntersville area after Hurricane Isaias in 2020. Examples of compliance issues that have been successfully addressed are vegetative buffer restoration, erosion remediation, and removal of material in violation of dumping restrictions.

Easement Monitoring: For the ninth year in a row, PTLT has accomplished 100% of its property monitoring requirements during the cold season monitoring period. PTLT uses an all-volunteer team of monitors under the oversight of a volunteer Monitoring Coordinator. This group identifies and evaluates potential issues on existing easements and completes, files, and distributes monitoring reports for each property. These reports are submitted to the easement co-holders and sponsors. This labor-intensive effort, while not consuming significant funding, is critical to ensuring that the conservation value of the properties is maintained and no easement violations occur. The Maryland Rural Legacy program grants PTLT funds to monitor properties for which they are co-holders.