The Putnam County Land Trust will officially open its newest trail tomorrow (Saturday): Turtle Pond Trail at its Laurel Ledges Preserve in Patterson. Festivities start at 1 p.m.

The trail skirts the northern edge of Turtle Pond (formerly Mendel Pond). Acquired through a (federal) grant from Bill and Sheila Hamilton, the pond serves vital wildlife needs for resting, nesting and food sources.

Steven Maddock of Mahopac Scout Troop 1 earned his Eagle Scout Badge through the planning, fund raising and construction of this trail. The Turtle Pond Trail as it will be called features over 1500 feet of trail including a 30 foot floating boardwalk.

The Opening Program will feature brief remarks and a walk on the trail led by PCLT board member and eminent naturalist, Beth Herr. The public is invited to attend. There is no fee. The ceremony be held at the Trail Head located on Cornwall Hill Road between Rte 164 and Couch Road and the walk will leave from there as well.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Publication: The Journal News
Missing planks don’t stop boys’ project

PATTERSON – Just as the Grinch was unsuccessful in preventing Christmas from coming, whoever may have pilfered Steven Maddock’s planks was similarly ineffectual in halting his Eagle Scout project.

In the spring, Maddock, a Mahopac High School senior, will be inducted as an Eagle Scout and the Putnam County Land Trust will hold a grand opening for its newest section of trail.

Maddock built the 1,500 feet of trail, which twists through rocky outcroppings in the trust’s Laurel Ledges Natural Area in Patterson, as his service project over the summer to attain the Boy Scouts’ highest level of achievement.

Along with the necessary organizing, fundraising and labor, Maddock had a chance to play “Encyclopedia Brown,” the main character in a series of children’s detective novels. That was because someone or several someones may have stolen eight 16-foot planks from the trail’s site earlier this year.

“Whoever did it probably heard it from their friends because they had to have read about it,” Maddock said yesterday, referring to a May article in The Journal News about his misfortune.

The report garnered several offers of donations, including $1,700 in materials from The Home Depot.

“We decided to help because it’s what we do and a big part of who we are as a company. At The Home Depot, we believe in doing our part to make a difference in our communities by giving back through volunteerism and donations. In the case of the stolen lumber, it was easy for us to see how we could help but more importantly, it was just the right thing to do,” said Sheriee S. Bowman, part of the company’s community affairs team.

With that in hand, Maddock was able to complete the trail, which bends through a forest of beech and oak off Cornwall Hill Road.

The byway skirts some wetlands, Turtle Pond and a stream. The stolen lumber was destined to become a floating boardwalk along the pond’s edge.

Built now with Home Depot’s largess, the boardwalk is ready to rise and fall as the pond fills and ebbs.

Standing on the boardwalk with Maddock yesterday was Bob Lund, the Land Trust’s head preserve steward. He helped guide Maddock’s effort.

“We’ve got a real battleground here, between native and invasive species,” Lund said, looking where phragmites are encroaching on native cattails.

Phragmites, also known as common reed, are native to North America, but researchers are worried a non-native strain is taking over local wetlands.

Maddock is a member of Troop 1 sponsored by the Mahopac Rotary Club. Some 400 hours – courtesy of Maddock and other Scouts he organized into work parties – went into fashioning the trail from the forest. A few trees were felled and several rock outcroppings were flattened with a sledge hammer.

“We were trying to keep the natural order,” said Maddock, who plans to study mechanical or aerospace engineering in college next year.

The missing planks, which had been secreted under leaves and screened from the Putnam County-owned road by brush and an earthen embankment, were never found.

Lund theorized at the time that they were removed when a county highway crew cut up a tree that had fallen on the road during a storm. A county spokeswoman said in May that the Highway Department had no record of removing a tree then on Cornwall Hill Road and that it knew nothing about the lumber.