–The West Tisbury preserve that provides access to the one of the few glacial freshwater ponds on Martha’s Vineyard’s open to public swimming will triple in size, adding to the trail system that now encompasses Ice House Pond.
The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank commission announced Friday that it had purchased 22.6 acres of property along Pepperbush Way in West Tisbury, connecting its 12-acre Manaquayak Preserve and Lamberts Cove Road. The seller was the Fellowship of Christians in Universities and School, Inc. (known as FOCUS) and the price was $2,350,000, according to a press release..
The land is entirely wooded but for an intermittent pond at its southern end known as the Rainwater Pond. A trail system will be sited to offer views of this pond.
The management plan also calls for the Land Bank to shift the existing preserve’s access from Wintergreen Lane to Lamberts Cove Road. The purpose of doing so is to allow visitors to be able to see whether the trailhead is full and therefore closed, without having to travel into and out of the Wintergreen Lane neighborhood,” Land Bank executive director James Lengyel said in a press release. “The Wintergreen Lane trailhead will remain available for handicapped and elderly visitors. The number of visitors allowed on the property/pond at any one time — twenty — is remaining. The new trailhead will be in place by the spring of 2016.”
History
Ice House Pond derives its name from the ice it once provided prior to refrigeration. It is one of the Land Bank’s most secluded and restricted
properties.
The public is not allowed to canoe or kayak on the pond. There is no beach. Swimmers may only enter the enter from a perch directly into five feet of water to avoid stirring up silt and parking is limited to four cars. An attendant is on hand to enforce the rules.
Many of the restrictions were put in place to meet conditions imposed by state environmental officials after the Land Bank’s plans for the property were vigorously opposed by a determined group of pond abutters who objected to the proposed public use.
The effort to provide public access to a pond enjoyed by generations of Islanders who took advantage of informal access over private property to go for late-night swims was the subject of review by three secretaries of the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) and took several years.
The Land Bank purchased the property in November 2004, through the use of a straw buyer in order to mask its interest from multiple sellers who, the Land Bank said, would likely not have sold to the public agency. The total purchase price was $2 million, and the sellers were Judith Lane at $1,250,000 and Nancy Schwenkter and Mary-Robin Ravitch at $750,000.
After a property is purchased, the elected Island-wide Land Bank commission and the town advisory board must first approve property management plans. The plan is then submitted for review and approval by the secretary.
But once the Ice House Pond purchaser was revealed to be the Land Bank, several sellers and property abutters mounted a vociferous campaign against the Land Bank and public use they deemed would be harmful, including swimming. Land Bank officials pointed to a record of responsible property management.
Among the most vociferous opponents were Mark Mattson, a limnologist in the state Department of Environmental Protection, and his wife, Judith Lane, a former property owner on the pond.
Several of the requests and arguments made by Mr. Mattson and Ms. Lane in letters to EOEA would later emerge in the conditions.
In 2005, then secretary Ellen Roy Herzfelder rejected the Land Bank’s first Ice House Pond plan, the first time in the public land conservation agency’s then 19-year history that the state failed to approve a submitted management plan.
In a letter dated July 24, 2006, new EOEA Secretary Stephen Pritchard approved a revised property management plan, but for the first time in 20 years, EOEA approval came with a set of four conditions.
The most significant of the conditions placed all responsibility with the Land Bank for maintaining the pond’s current water quality, within limits set by the state. That included measurements for nitrates and phosphorus, chemicals normally associated with septic systems and fertilizer.
Although several houses, including four rental properties capable of sleeping 36 people, and a religious camp sat in close proximity to Ice House Pond, EOEA wrote that should state levels be exceeded, the Land Bank must suspend swimming from its property “until a comprehensive pond watershed analysis is completed to determine the sources and levels of nutrient inputs and an action plan is developed to address these sources.”
When tests conducted in the summer and fall of 2006, while the property was still closed to the public, revealed that the phosphorous level had already been exceeded and the nitrogen level was close to the maximum set by the state, in May 2007, newly appointed EOEA Secretary Ian Bowles revised the conditions under which the public would have been prohibited from enjoying the pond, clearing the way for the public to take a dip.