White Farm 'The Jewel of the Crown' in Durham

On Saturday, more than two dozen people gathered at White Farm in Durham for a ceremonial grand re-opening of the open space property.

The former farm, now considered one of the town's most popular recreational areas, has undergone a significant transformation over the past eight months as the town and state worked together to restore the 110-acre property.

"We found ourselves in a situation that a property we owned was getting in such disrepair that we couldn't use it anymore, at least not in the way that it was intended to be," said Durham First Selectman Francis. 

Last September, workers from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection began removing sediment from Allyn Brook and rechanneling the waterway which had flooded its banks, rendering the property nearly unusable. 

Using vehicles with names like Marsh Master II and Crawler Carriers to ensure that the impact on local habitat was minimal, the DEEP created a new brook stretching from Route 68 to Maple Avenue.

DEEP Deputy Commissioner Susan Whalen was invited to the ceremony and said White Farm serves as an important wildlife corridor for grassland and farmland birds, some of which are endangered or threatened species in the state.

"We need to do everything in our role at this time in life to make sure that we can leave a clean, healthy and diverse eco-system for future generations," she said. "White Farm is definitely part of that mission."

Whalen also used the ceremony, which was held this weekend to coincide with Earth Day on Monday, to remind the crowd that Saturday was opening day of fishing season.

"We have stocked a hundred brown trout in the river, so those fisherman who want to run home and get their rod you can run out there and try to catch a brown trout," she said.

Later this year, the state is scheduled to complete a fisheries habitat along the brook.

Francis said the state also plans to address flooding issues to the north and south of the property. The town, meanwhile, which budgeted $215,000 for the project — $80,000 of which went to the DEEP — is still in the process of deciding where to move the piles of sediment removed from the brook.

Robert Melvin, chairman of Durham's Conservation Commission provided the crowd with a brief history of the property.

"It's sort of the jewel of the crown. It's our oldest parcel and it's probably our most utilized," he said.

Francis thanked town commission members, the public works department and others who had a hand in the project, as well as members of the White family, which sold the land to the town in 1965.

"Going forward...we will put together a maintenance plan so that those that come after us won't have to be here doing a similar project of this magnitude in the future," Francis said.

The gathering started with a moment of silence for the victims of the Boston Marathon attack and subsequent manhunt for the suspects, as well as for the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas this week.