2005 News

July 6, 2005
BUCKS COMMISSIONERS APPROVE NATURAL AREAS GRANT IN WARWICK TOWNSHIP

The Bucks County Commissioners today approved a $100,000 natural areas grant to protect 10.75 acres of land designated as an important natural area in the Neshaminy Valley.

The wooded property, owned by Betty Jane and Fredric Rieders, is adjacent to other preserved land in Warwick Township and located at the Forks of the Neshaminy, where the Little Neshaminy Creek and the Neshaminy Creek meet. The site also includes floodplain and wetlands where it slopes to the Neshaminy.

The cost of the entire conservation easement is $245,000. With the county picking up $100,000, the remainder was divided between Warwick Township, 55 percent, and the Heritage Conservancy, five percent.

Bucks County's Natural Areas Inventory identifies the Rieders property as a steeply sloped, hardwood forest, with a sheer cliff along the Neshaminy Creek.

The original, voter-approved $59 million bond issue to preserve open space (1997) was allocated to the following programs: $20 million, municipal grants; $13.5 million, farmland preservation; $16.5 million parks, and $9 million, natural areas.

The commissioners held today's bimonthly meeting in the Bucks County Courthouse Community Room.