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The Blade (Toledo, OH)
Editorial
12-07-00
A win-win solution appears in sight for the old Toledo workhouse site in Waterville Township. And the Toledo Area Metroparks, an agency which is in the process of adding the 185-acre Fallen Timbers Battlefield to its inventory, would also acquire 203 acres of open space in a part of Lucas County that is undergoing rapid suburbanization.
Mayor Carty Finkbeiner has agreed to sell 308 acres, now known as the Quarry Pond Farm, to the county and the metroparks for $2 million. The metroparks would acquire 203 acres on the east and north side of the tract for $1.3 million, acreage containing farmland, oak savanna, a quarry pond, and wooded areas. Lucas County, for a price of $700,000, would become owner of the southeastern part of the site, which contains the former Toledo House of Corrections and a number of other buildings, some of them in a deteriorated condition.
The purchase, once concluded, would be an important link in a corridor of green spaces, and it would save one of the few remaining undeveloped oak openings savanna, a transition zone between the Black Swamp of northwest Ohio and the drier prairie grasslands to the west.
The county plans to buy its share of the land with the help of a million-dollar federal grant obtained by U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), who has been a tireless champion of preservation of farmland, ecologically important areas of the county, and the Fallen Timbers national historic area.
As Jean Ward, director of the Metroparks, put it last April, "It would seem like we could work with a cooperative agreement with the soil and water district, but we don’t want to be married to them." That separate but cooperative arrangement is reflected in the proposed division of the tract.
Angela Manuszak of the Lucas County Soil and Water Conservation District said the organization would like to continue its education efforts on the land if it remains in public ownership. About 1,000 school children visit the site each year, and it is also used for research by University of Toledo students.
Metropark and Lucas County officials caution that they have no specific plans for the tract. Mr. Ward said, "It is a sizable piece of land which will now remain public. It has a quarry pond, wetlands, wetwoods, and other natural features.’’ Speaking for the county, John Alexander, assistant county administrator, said the activities of the conservation district would appear to be an appropriate use for the site.
Ms. Kaptur perhaps put it best when she said the soil and trees in the area should be preserved when possible, "because it’s our garden." Parklands add incalculable value to the quality of life of any region. No obvious downside exists to this far-sighted effort to preserve a piece of the rapidly disappearing open space in Lucas County.
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