Vote “YES” on Article 40: Support the Robbins Pond Woodlands Project

Harwich voters have an important opportunity to protect water quality and preserve wildlife habitat at Town Meeting on Monday, May 4th at the Harwich Community Center. The meeting may extend to two nights, so please save the date of Tuesday, May 5 as well. 

Please vote “YES” on Article 40 to support $225,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds for the acquisition of a conservation restriction by the Town Conservation Commission for Harwich Conservation Trust’s (HCT) Robbins Pond Woodlands Project.

The Robbins Pond Woodlands Project is comprised of nearly 18 acres of environmentally sensitive land including 275 feet of shoreline habitat on Robbins Pond in North Harwich. This project is part of HCT’s Priority Ponds Project to save sensitive watershed parcels.

The property abuts the 3.3-acre Robbins Pond Preserve, purchased by HCT in 2023 from owner Scott Trask who recognized an opportunity to preserve his land in perpetuity. The forested area is across the pond from the extensive Town of Harwich-owned Robbins Pond Conservation Area and Herring River Greenway to the east, and Brewster’s 900-acre Punkhorn Parklands to the north.

A win for water quality

The hope with this new 18-acre initiative is to preserve biodiversity along the western shore of the pond and help keep groundwater clean. Historical maps indicate a stream once meandered from the pond to the Herring River through the 18 acres before the adjoining wetlands were converted to bogs about a century ago and before Route 6 was built in the 1950s.

Today, a slow stream flow somehow still finds its way from the pond through the worn, rustic ditches before dipping under Factory Road and Route 6, then eventually merging with the Herring River.

Preserving this land will help protect the public drinking water supply, as the 18 acres are located within a town wellfield recharge area. In addition to safeguarding water quality in Robbins Pond and the Herring River watershed, the land provides wildlife habitat for animals including songbirds, raptors and mammals. A diversity of dragonfly and damselfly species (including rarities) zip along the shallow shoreline of reeds that buffers the forested slope in the summer.

State signals strong support

In October, the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), selected the 18-acre initiative for a $225,000 grant as long as HCT can raise the rest of the funds needed to complete the project, which is estimated at $550,000.

The state’s Conservation Partnership grant program is part of a broader effort to support local climate resilience and land conservation. Protection of the public drinking water supply, ponds, rivers and other water resources as well as saving wildlife habitat for rare species helps applicants like HCT earn this “green investment” by the state.

“Protecting open spaces is about investing in the health, safety and wellbeing of our communities,” said Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey. “These projects support local economies, improve public health and make our neighborhoods better places to live. This funding helps ensure that every resident has access to the benefits of nature.”

Jussila family chooses conservation

We are grateful to the Jussila family, who is thoughtfully choosing a conservation future for the land by selling it to HCT. This long since abandoned commercial cranberry bog property was retired from production in the 1950s. Since that time the bogs and surrounding upland have been allowed to naturalize to pitch pine-oak woodlands and wooded red maple wetlands.

“It’s nice to know that the land will remain open,” said Bill Jussila, who has lived in the family home adjacent to the property since 1947, when he was two years old.

The land was a huge part of his life and there was a lot of room to roam. “They started calling this ‘horse country’ because a lot of people had horses up this way,” he remembered. “And I learned to drive here when I was 14 or 15. We had an old Model A jalopy.”

When Jussila was growing up, Harwich was still a very small town, with a population of about 2.500 residents. “Everyone knew everyone, everyone worked together,” said Jussila. “We had 32 kids in our graduating class (at Harwich High School) in 1963.”

Please vote “YES” on Article 40 to support the Robbins Pond Woodlands Project. These kinds of projects preserve our sense of place and quality of life. Our coastal waters, ponds and sole source aquifer are treasured resources that are under constant threat by development. HCT believes that the best way to protect our waters is to preserve the surrounding land.

Harwich Town Meeting takes place at 6 p.m. on May 4th at the Harwich Community Center, 100 Oak Street. The meeting may extend to two nights, so please save the date of Tuesday, May 5 as well. Hope to see you there!

To make a donation to HCT in support of the Robbins Pond Woodlands Project, please click here.

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