Time to Buy Tuckertown
For those not familiar with the High Rock and Tuckertown Reservoir properties--two large pieces of land and Yadkin River shoreline colloquially known as the “ALCOA Lands” in Davie, Davidson, and Rowan Counties--then please visit this webpage created by our friends at Three Rivers Land Trust to learn more. The short story is that we have the opportunity to permanently conserve 4,700 acres and 76 miles of shoreline; an area where 80% of NC’s population lives within 100 miles of and is open to hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation to the public.
In a major feat of cooperation and hard-ass work over the course of three years, conservation partners and WRC banned together and secured the first section, High Rock, in September 2019 by raising the market-set purchase price of $7.7 million. That initial buy has permanently conserved 2,463 acres and 45 miles of shoreline for the sportsmen and women of North Carolina. Now, the conservation community has turned its attention to the second half of these Alcoa lands: Tuckertown Reservoir. We have less than two years to raise the $8.5 million needed to close the deal.
Last Friday, representatives from BHA, NCWF, NWTF, DU, Three Rivers Land Trust, The Conservation Fund, Piedmont Land Conservancy, Land For Tomorrow, and NCWRC all came together to discuss ideas and strategies to raise these funds and secure this land for the public in perpetuity. There will be additional meetings and strategy sessions and we will keep you informed on how things are progressing and how to help. In the meantime, please reach out to NC BHA at [email protected] with thoughts, connections, information, etc. This is a very heavy lift and we’ll need all the help we can get.