A group of abutters to the St. Andrew's Farm Field are not happy with some of the work taking place at the town-owned property. 

Katherine Quinn, whose backyard looks out onto the field, said the clear-cutting which took place on the southeastern section of the property about a month ago has destroyed important animal habitat. She also said the grass in the main field was cut too early, killing off important milkweed plants when they are needed most by migrating butterflies. And, she added, that the field was also cut too short, making a muddy mess of the once handsome property, and killing small animals in the process.

"There were dead animals all over the place," said Ms. Quinn. "It's been an atrocity. It's been incredibly mismanaged."

Ms. Quinn said she has had a difficult time finding a copy of the plan and has struggled to track down who is in charge of the work. 

The project involves a number of different parties. 

While the town owns the land, the Barrington Land Conservation Trust holds an easement on the property and serves as stewards for the open space. A portion of the land is leased to St. Andrew's School; the school has a house and a maintenance building on that part of the property. 

According to land trust official Peter Burke, the Farm Field project was intended to restore a section of the property to its original status as an open field. An aerial photograph from the mid-1990s show the land to be open field dotted with a few trees.

But when officials constructed a soccer field toward the front of the property (closer to Middle Highway), some of the excess material was stored in large piles on the abutting land. Those mounds eventually sprouted vegetation — some of it being non-native invasives.

"It had been growing out, and a lot of stuff had been dumped there," said Mr. Burke. "We (the land trust) said we should restore that to a field."

Private donors also offered to help beautify the parcel; longtime residents Sandy and Dotty McCulloch agreed to pay for a new stone wall gate near the entrance to the property and other improvements near the trailhead closer to the parking lot.

Land trust officials enlisted the help of the Barrington Department of Public Works. Crews cleared out bushes and trees, and removed the large piles of dirt and debris.

"The town brought in their front-end loader and smoothed it so it can be mowed," said Mr. Burke.

The local land trust official agreed that once the work was finished, the land appeared as a stark contrast to what had previously been there. 

"It looks like a construction site," he said, quickly adding that the property would look much nice once the new plantings and grass filled in.

"I think it's going to look marvelous — a big field, lots of pollinators," said Mr. Burke. 

He added that only a very small portion of the woodlands habitat was reduced. "There's still lots of habitat there."

Some neighbors believe that the clear-cut eliminated important plants and had a devastating impact on the birds and other animals that live there.

"This is not a conservation project," said Ms. Quinn. "They've mismanaged the land. They haven't done a good job. They've cut it three weeks too early. They've destroyed animal habitat. It's so mismanaged, so badly done. We're distressed about that. We're worried about the butterflies and birds that migrate here.

"We're like the Lorax… we speak for the trees."

Ms. Quinn said she regularly walks to the grass paths at the St. Andrew's Farm Field and talks to other people who are using the land. She said most people she bumps into are unhappy with the project. 

"Everybody I see in the field is like, 'What the hell is going on?'" she said, adding that three residents have already filed complaints with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

Ms. Quinn said many of the abutters have not been notified when the work will take place.

"We'd like to know when there's going to be bulldozers and chainsaws in the field," she said.

Carriage road

Ms. Quinn said she recently learned that officials plan to put down a gravel path leading from the parking lot at St. Andrew's Farm Field to the end of Fountain Avenue.

"Do you really need to put a gravel road across the field?" asked Ms. Quinn. 

Another resident, Janet Zwolinski, sent a letter to land trust official Victor Lerish. Part of the letter addressed the construction of the new carriage road.

"… the carriage road is completely unnecessary and will cut the field in two with an unsightly swath of crushed stone," she wrote. "Clearly, with all the work that has been done in the last 6 weeks, heavy equipment, let alone mowers, have no problem accessing every inch of the property."

Barrington Town Planner Phil Hervey said the gravel path will be an improvement over the existing dirt path.

"It's not a good surface," Mr. Hervey said of the dirt path. "We're going to try to improve it… We definitely want to improve the main trail. We're not going to pave it. It will look a carriage trail with a grass strip down the middle. People can run through there or walk through it."

In a recent letter to the abutters, Mr. Lerish tried to offer some of the reasoning behind the work.

"The goal of the recent work in the southeast area of the property was to enable the town and land trust to manage this as an open field with some tree islands and to turn back the normal process of succession that would if left untouched turned this area back into forest," he wrote, in part.  

"Towards that end it had to be made mowable, hence the excavation work that many of you have objected to.

"Please be assured that there are no plans to expand the parking area. The work you see adjacent to the parking area is site work for the trailhead entrance area."

Hopes for the future

Land trust officials held a meeting on Thursday night, Oct. 25, where the Farm Field project was discussed. 

Following the meeting, property abutter Katherine Quinn said she was very impressed by the generosity of Sandy and Dotty McCulloch.

"The McCulloch's philanthropy is truly inspiring," Ms. Quinn wrote in an email. "They have been generous and thoughtful about their gift and the field is a tremendous resource to the community. It was, and hopefully will again one day be, a thriving habitat for wildlife and plants. One thing that was abundantly clear by the strong turn out at the meeting and the passionate discussion that occurred is that there are many people who truly value it and want to protect it. We love this piece of land and all of the natural beauty that it provides us daily access to."

Ms. Quinn said there have been detailed studies completed about that property and suggestions made for property management of that land. She said she hopes the land trust utilizes those studies in the future.

"It is my sincere hope that BLCT (Barrington Land Conservation Trust) will utilize the funding provided by the McCulloch gift and the matching funds made by the town to carry out these instructions in the future as they are clearly in keeping with the wishes expressed by the McCullouchs when they made the original gift of the property and again with their most recent donation — to maintain and cultivate this property for public enjoyment and to conserve the natural habitats that it provides," Ms. Quinn wrote.