FOLEY – The property around the Swift-Coles historic house would be preserved as part of the federal Forever Wild program under a plan by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The CDNR is applying for a Coastal Wetland Conservation Grant to acquire 81 acres next to the Swift-Coles house, Ashley Campbell, Baldwin County natural resource planner, said at the last County Commission work session. The property would be added to the Forever Wild Land Trust.
The commission voted June 14 to send a letter supporting the proposal.
“It is a beautiful area,” Campbell said. Forever Wild already owns 250 acres to the northeast of this. This is an 81-acre addition that surrounds the Swifts-Coles House. They are going to put a trail in with the grant and that’s why they were asking for some type of donation for the parking lot gravel.”
The trail would start near the Bon Secour Volunteer Fire Department station, Campbell said. She said the trail would not extend to the Swift-Coles House. The trail would begin on Bon Secour Highway on property that is now in the Forever Wild program. The trail will also extend to Swift Elementary School.
Campbell said the property and trail will also be used for environmental education programs at local schools.
“We are working with the Swift School to bring the master environmental education program, which the commission supports 100 percent,” Campbell said. “We want to bring that to them as part of this grant.”
Campbell said that the acquisition could expand environmental programs in an area of the county that does not have as many public natural resources.
“In Bon Secour, there’s not a lot of access to our natural resources down there and this is very beautiful,” she said.
She said project supporters may not know for a year if the grant application is approved. Letters of endorsement and other efforts to support the project are factors that are considered by the Natural Resources Coastal Grant program in considering applications.
The county will also provide 25 tons of gravel, at a cost of about $1,000 for a parking lot next to a trail planned the property and continue to collect litter in the area, both factors that can be considered as support in the grant application.
