Pepperell Conservation Commission Weighs Potential Land Sale to Federal Wildlife Agency

PEPPERELL — January 8, 2019 — Pepperell Conservation Commission takes up unrecorded-deed land inquiry and public outreach revisions. The commission, meeting January 8, unanimously approved amended minutes from its December 11 session before turning to a land transaction inquiry from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is interested in purchasing a town-held conservation parcel of roughly four acres near Lowell Road — at approximately $1,000 per acre — to gain walking access to a landlocked lot being assembled with the Dunstable Rural Land Trust. The agent reported that the parcel's deed appears never to have been recorded at the registry of deeds, with every town office having noted the same question mark, and that even the original donor's attorney could not locate it; any transfer would also require a two-thirds vote of the state Legislature under Article 97. Members also discussed a licensed falconer's request to use the commission's Tissot Meadows orchard for hunting, agreeing to consult state ornithologist Andrew Witt and retired DFW official Tom French before acting, given the orchard's documented rare-bird habitat. Draft revisions to the commission's public conservation land regulations and "Living with Wetlands" brochure were circulated, with members agreeing to group all prohibitions before permitted uses and to replace technical abbreviations with plain-language terms such as "wetland."