The Willamette River Preservation Trust has closed the deal on its first piece of property.
The Scotts Mills-based organization, which formed last year to protect land in the Willamette basin for conservation and recreation, has purchased a piece of property along the North Santiam River near Stayton.
“We reached our goal, have wired the funds, and signed the docs,” Travis Williams, the trust’s founder, president and CEO told Our Town.
As of mid-January, Williams said, the trust’s name was on the deed for the “Oak Meadows Natural Area.”
“The funding effort went really well, and there is some good interest in the site and what we are trying to do,” he added.
The 270-acre piece of land includes wetlands, wet prairie and oak woodland.
“This property is fantastic,” Williams said. “It supports Bradshaw’s lomatium as well as extensive camas in the spring. It also holds native sedges and grasses.”
Bradshaw’s lomatium, a sweet native flower, was once on the Endangered Species List, but it is recovering and it has been de-listed.
The purchase price of the property was $295,000.
Regarding the history of the property, Williams said the owners had once grown grass seed, and it had poplars as well.
“Several years ago they gained a conservation easement on the property from the Natural Resource Conservation Service,” he said. “Since then the property has been given over to conservation, with native sedges on the site, the Bradshaw’s lomatium, and some wonderful oak woodland.
“In time we will provide opportunities for the general public to visit the site. Hopefully we can do that in the spring when the wildflowers are blooming.”
Key environmental benefits of the property cited by Williams include:
• Oak meadows sustain unique wetland and native grassland species.
• The expansive meadow of camas and the presence of Bradshaw’s lomatium make the property unique.
• It supports a range of oak woodland habitat, replete with Oregon grape and snowberry in the understory.
