BIDDEFORD — After an aggressive fundraising campaign, conservationists have the money to preserve a parcel of undeveloped land.
Wolfe Tone, state director for The Trust for Public Land, said they now have $5.125 million to purchase 97 acres of land off Granite Point Road and a small island near the mouth of the Little River known as Timber Point.
The Trust for Public Land, along with the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Friends of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge secured $3 million from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and $200,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation toward the land purchase. The groups put out a call in July to raise the remaining funds.
“We are elated with the support this project has received, and can now position ourselves to close this project later this fall,” Tone said Friday when the goal had been met.
The area is believed to be one of the last large coastal parcels of undeveloped land under single ownership between Kittery and Cape Elizabeth. The parcel will become part of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge’s Little River Division, and the family will retain 13 acres and an existing farmhouse.
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