To the Editor:

Fifteen years after the town’s purchase of the Brox property, we agree with the editorial on April 17 that the buy was a good idea, just not for the reasons given in the editorial.

Rather, the citizens are now owners of what is turning out to be a real gem of a natural place in the western part of town. Nature has had 20 years to recover and it has done so very well. The “Brox property” name no longer reflects what this place is, which is the terrific Heron Pond Wetland Complex, home to the state’s endangered Blanding’s turtle, a key species whose habitat is an umbrella for numerous other species.

This place is home to the state’s endangered eastern hognose snake, home to a rare colony of great blue herons, home to a rare sycamore tree floodplain forest, and home to more than a dozen small, special ecosystems known as vernal pools that have wood frogs, spotted salamanders and even fairy shrimp, a rare inland crustacean.

We citizens fully support that the Conservation Commission will be having a natural resources inventory done at the Brox property. In this way, we can know for sure as a town what is there to be protected. As for recreation, there are hundreds of people who already utilize the property for walking, hiking, dog walking, cycling, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, wildlife watching, photography, hunting and just plain enjoying the outdoors provided by these 270 acres of undeveloped open space.

So it is good that we own this 270 acre Heron Pond Wetland Complex. But rather than plan the annihilation of almost everything natural by replacing it with buildings and sports fields, and the roads to get around them, we can embrace what nature is offering us.

If we “listen” to the land, it will tell us what it wants to be. Conservation is a good purpose and has its own powerful attraction. Conserved open space brings many dollars into Milford.

SUZANNE FOURNIER

Coordinator

Brox Environmental Citizens

Milford