Safe Harbor Owners Donating 1,000 Acres for Conservation

By Tim Mekeel, Lancaster New Era, Pa.

May 9–About 1,000 acres of undeveloped Susquehanna River shoreline and islands are being donated to a national conservation group, it was announced today.

Safe Harbor Water Power Corp. is giving the land, with an estimated value of $1.8 million, to The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit group based in Arlington, Va.

“This culminates a long discussion of which land would be suitable for preservation,” said George Lewis, a spokesman for PPL Corp., an owner of Safe Harbor.

The Conservation Fund eventually expects to transfer ownership of the acreage to a government agency for its long-term protection as natural open space and wildlife habitat.

The land includes 12 contiguous parcels of York County shoreline in Chanceford Township, starting at the Safe Harbor hydroelectric dam and going north.

It also includes more than 50 islands in the river, among them Rookery Island (aka House Island) and Mud Island (aka Middle Island) near Washington Boro.

While that total number of islands sounds high, it includes many islands that were submerged by the creation of Lake Clarke when the dam was constructed in the 1929-30.

The submerged islands were included in the event that someday the dam is removed and the river level retreats, allowing the islands to reappear, Lewis explained.

However, the donated land excludes property along and in the river that Safe Harbor has leased out.

“Anything that has a lease on it, we’re retaining,” said Ron Wagner, Safe Harbor’s properties superintendent.

The deal also excludes Safe Harbor Village and nearly 200 acres of surrounding woods on the Lancaster County side, which the power company wants to sell.

Safe Harbor, which is jointly owned by PPL and Constellation Energy of Baltimore, gets several benefits from the land transaction, explained Lewis.

It advances the conservation of natural habitat, gets a tax benefit from making a donation to a nonprofit organization and stops paying real estate taxes on the property, he said.

Safe Harbor and The Conservation Fund had discussed the land donation for nearly six years, said Wagner.

Now that the fund is getting the land, fund spokeswoman Jena Thompson said her organization will assess it in detail to determine its “best long-term steward.”

Then the fund will give the land to that party, most likely a state or federal agency, she said.

“Sometimes it takes a couple years to do it. This is just the beginning of the process,” said Thompson.

Since its creation in 1985, the fund has worked with partners such as government agencies and non-profit groups to protect more than five million acres in this manner.

In a prepared statement, the fund noted the value of the donated land to wildlife and recreation.

The acreage, said the fund, “provides important feeding and resting areas for migratory birds and habitat for threatened and endangered species including bald eagle, black tern and osprey.

“The conservation of this land also supports Chesapeake Bay restoration initiatives, as the Susquehanna River contributes nearly half of the freshwater flow to the Chesapeake Bay,” the fund added.

The land donation, scheduled to be announced at an afternoon press conference at Washington Boro Park, is subject to the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

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