22 parcels · 4,100 acres under easement
The Tamarack watershed, held in trust one parcel at a time.
Land stays in private hands — farmed or forested as it always has been — but can never be subdivided or developed, permanently.
61 miles
of river and tributary shoreline protected since 1994
340 ac210 ac480 ac165 ac
Water Quality
The water table rose 4 inches within a year of the 2023 culvert removal.
At river mile 4.2, an undersized culvert had blocked fish passage and backed up sediment since the 1960s. We removed it in March 2023 with the county road department. By spring 2024, brook trout were documented spawning upstream of the site for the first time in the study’s 36-year record.
Water-quality samples are taken at 6 fixed points along the river every quarter; the full dataset back to 1994 is published on request.
Current Easements
Twenty-two parcels, four townships, one connected watershed.
Kettleman Ridge Farm
- Acreage
- 340 acres
- Use
- Working hayfield and woodlot
- Easement signed
- 2019
Bostwick Bend
- Acreage
- 210 acres
- Use
- 1.8 mi of protected river frontage
- Easement signed
- 2011
Sorrel Hill Forest
- Acreage
- 480 acres
- Use
- 40-year managed timber plan
- Easement signed
- 2022
“We wanted Kettleman Ridge to stay a working farm for our grandkids, not get sold off in five-acre lots after we’re gone. The easement did exactly that without us giving up the deed.”
“Tamarack’s monitoring visits are the most thorough I’ve seen from any land trust in the state — they know this valley’s water table better than the county does.”
Membership
$45 a year funds one quarter’s water-quality sampling round.
Tamarack Land Trust runs on membership dues and easement stewardship funds, not one-time campaigns — sampling, monitoring visits, and legal defense of existing easements are ongoing costs, not a single ask.
$45/yr
Funds one quarterly water-sampling round
$120/yr
Funds one annual easement-monitoring visit
$500/yr
Founding Steward — annual landowner walk