Committee OKs sale of land in Trumbull County

By Ed Runyan

The Cleveland Museum also owns land in two other Trumbull townships.

WARREN — There are 293 acres of nearly pristine swamp forest in Bristol Township, just north and east of the intersection of Bristol-Champion Townline Road and Downs Road, where members of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History will soon be able to see rare plants and possibly even endangered animals.

That is because the museum recently was approved to use money from the state’s Clean Ohio Conservation Program to buy the land.

A committee of the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments also approved the use of Clean Ohio funds so Howland Township could buy 12 acres north of North River Road just east of North Road and allowed the Trumbull County Planning Commission to buy 142 acres on North Road, just south of North Road Elementary School.

David Kriska, the museum’s biodiversity coordinator, said the property will be the museum’s third in Trumbull County among more than 35 that it owns in northern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania. The two other Trumbull County properties are in Mesopotamia and Hartford townships.

The museum will use the land in keeping with the goals of the Clean Ohio fund: land preservation.

Kriska said the Bristol land is a place where one can find wet woods that look very much like they did in the 1700s.

“This is one of the finest examples of swamp forest in the Grand River Lowlands,” Kriska said, adding that the museum will be able to help protect 10 rare animal species and six or so rare plants.

Among the rare animals living in the area are bobcats, trumpeter swans and snowshoe hares. Among the rare plants found there are northern rose azaleas.

Though the property will change hands within a couple of months, no one is likely to notice much difference, Kriska said. A sign will go up, but that’s about it.

On April 16, the museum plans to take a trip to the site to inventory the plants and animals there. Eventually, the museum will schedule walking tours of the grounds for museum members.

Rachel McCartney, community development program manager with Eastgate, said the museum application and the two others were approved by the Natural Resources Assistance Council of Eastgate in February.

During the five years since the Natural Resources Assistance Council has been making local decisions on the use of the Clean Ohio money, the Ohio Public Works Commission has funded every one of its recommendations, McCartney said.

The planning commission’s 142-acre property is in Howland and Warren and will be the fifth one the commission has acquired in recent years in the Mosquito Creek corridor south of Mosquito Lake.

Like the four earlier parcels, this one eventually will be turned over to the Trumbull County MetroParks system. The four earlier parcels are in Bazetta and Howland, a short distance south of the Mosquito Lake Dam at state Route 305.

Howland’s new property also is in the Mosquito Creek corridor.

Such land generally can be used for what is known as passive recreation, such as nature walks, said Trish Nuskievicz, the commission’s floodplain administrator and assistant director. There are already many trails in the 142-acre parcel, she said.

runyan@vindy.com