Imagine being able to walk across the North Fork from Peconic Bay to the Long Island Sound, enjoying bird song, wildflowers, and shady trees along the way. The Peconic Bay to Long Island Sound integrated trails initiative, or Bay to Sound project as it is known locally, is a network of trails linking Suffolk County land, Southold Town land, and Greenport Village preserves to do just that.
“It’s really a great example of public-private partnership and working with the community to not only be introduced to this project, because while the community may be aware that the town has been preserving open space, they may not actually be aware of this really neat opportunity to get involved and the grant that it’s being funded under,” said Taralynn Reynolds, Outreach Director for Group for the East End, one of the organizations involved in the initiative. Work conducted on the Bay to Sound Trails project is currently being funded by the New York State Department of State under Title 11 of the Environmental Protection Fund.
The project formally began in 2007 when the Town of Southold, Greenport Village and Suffolk County agreed to partner on the project. Multiple phases have been completed, but there is always more work to be done. John Sepenoski, GIS at Southold town, spearheaded the project. He has been working with various local organizations and municipalities to clean up and maintain this resource, including Group for the East End.
“The mission was linking up the existing preserves and doing more preservation in the area so you can walk from the Bay to the Sound as much as possible and nature trails,” said Sepenoski.
So far, 10 miles of trails have been established and more than 174,000 pounds of trash and debris have been removed. “The big piece of it that we’re currently focusing on is working on these restoration management plans that the state will approve for removing invasive species, planting native species, and monitoring what is in there, what we think could be there, and really thinking about the science behind invasion ecology and restoration ecology,” said Ms. Reynolds.
There are a number of ways for the public to get involved beyond hiking the trails. “We like volunteers. Ideally, we’re hanging out with them for an hour and show them what’s going on. Then they just show up as they have time and email us the hours they work,” said Mr. Sepenoksi.
“To me, it’s very rewarding work, and I’ve seen people get very into it. They always leave with knowledge, and that’s really what we’re trying to do,” said Ms. Reynolds. “So yes, we need help physically, but I do feel like it’s a nice trade off. You are learning about where you live and why it’s important to protect it. Because I think a lot of people just take it for granted; they’re so used to seeing this out on the North Fork, but all of those beautiful, natural places that we love are under threat in a lot of ways. So it’s good to get the community involved and aware. And of course, we definitely need boots on the ground.”