The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) granted the Finger Lakes Land Trust (FLLT) $1.6 million to place the 234-acre Casa Farms under a conservation easement. The farm’s 6,000-foot frontage on Hooker Brook drains into Skaneateles Lake, an unfiltered water source for more than 200,000 people in Syracuse. Along the brook is a natural buffer zone that simultaneously prevents contamination of the water supply and allows agricultural use to continue. The property rests in the Skaneateles Highlands, one of the 45 nature preserves already under the FLLT’s protection, and is near land already conserved by the DEC. The trust has over 171 conservation easements on private property in place and protects over 29,000 acres of the region’s lakeshores, forests, gorges, and farmland. Read more HERE.