At the September meeting of the County Planning Board, a representative of the Prickly Pear Land Trust (PPLT) introduced a proposal to establish a conservation easement on a privately owned 271-acre parcel near Holmes Gulch in Montana City.
The project, as PPLT wrote the Planning Board, “protects the property’s grasslands and forest, which together supports extremely high wildlife habitat values, especially for a local herd of elk” — and would advance PPLT’s yearslong efforts to protect lands around Mt. Ascension. The proposal was submitted to the county for an advisory review, as required by statute.
The easement, which PPLT expects to complete this winter, would not be the first in Jefferson County: Since 1998, PPLT has secured multiple conservation easements on relatively modest-sized parcels in the north end of the county, according to the National Conservation Easement Database. Another organization, Montana Land Reliance, has completed even more easement transactions, often involving bigger properties — including 2,395 acres around Haystack Creek in Clancy and 3,751 acres in the Boulder Valley, near Clarke Gulch off Highway 69.
