Portion of White Pines Promontory Along Deep River State Trail Protected

NC State Parks recently purchased two tracts along the Deep River in Lee County, with large portions in the White Pines Promontory, a federally significant Natural Heritage Site. Neighboring each other, the Marks and Cashion properties consist of nearly 240 acres of forested land directly downstream from the Hearn/Dawkins tract, a State Parks/TLC assist project completed in May 2006. TLC negotiated the purchase with the landowners, wrote grant applications to assist funding, and managed the appraisal, survey, and environmental assessment for the transaction.

These tracts, held by the state as “conservation land,” will become part of the Deep River State Trail, a series of conserved lands and recreation amenities stretching along the Deep from its headwaters in Guilford County through Randolph and Moore counties to the confluence of the Deep and Haw rivers in Chatham and Lee counties.

The Marks tract, sold by the Marks family of Lee County, consists of nearly 200 acres plus a 60’ wide strip of land providing access to Farrell Road. Conservation of this land will protect over 3,800 feet of river frontage.

The Marks tract has been recognized by staff of the North Carolina Natural Heritage Trust Fund as one of the most important tracts in Lee and Chatham County for its natural heritage significance. The Marks family remembers when professors from NCSU, UNC-CH and Pembroke would bring students to the property to identify and examine the variety of species, some rare, growing there.

Sold by Lisa L. Johnson Cashion and Kathy L. Johnson McClearen, conservation of the Cashion tract protects almost a mile of river frontage and tributary streams.

The Cashion tract is the link between the Hearn/Dawkins and Marks tracts. These tracts protect nearly two continuous miles of shoreline on the Deep River in Lee County, including habitat for the endangered Cape Fear Shiner. Combined with TLC's White Pines and Second Island properties on the north side of the river in Chatham County, there is now nearly one mile of river protected on both sides.

In its 25 years, Triangle Land Conservancy has conserved more than 10,000 acres of the region’s most critical natural lands—that’s an area twice the size of William B. Umstead State Park.  The places TLC has conserved provide a variety of benefits to our region: keeping water clean, keeping air pure, sustaining local farms, providing habitat for wildlife, and providing places for people to connect with nature.

Those places where people connect with nature include four nature preserves and one river access site owned and managed by TLC: Johnston Mill Nature Preserve on New Hope Creek in Orange County, White Pines Preserve at the confluence of the Deep and Rocky rivers in Chatham County, Swift Creek Bluffs in Wake County, Flower Hill in Johnston County and McIver Landing canoe and kayak access on the Deep River in Chatham County.

In addition, TLC has led partnerships with state agencies and other non-profits to conserve land for other public recreation amenities, such as the Lower Haw River State Natural Area in Chatham County and the Little River Regional Park in northern Orange and Durham counties.  TLC’s conservation work on the Deep River in Lee and Chatham counties led the NC General Assembly last year to authorize the Deep River State Trail, a new kind of state park unit.