The 80-acre Croydon Woods Nature Preserve in Bristol Township will be open to the public this Saturday.
The Doylestown-based nonprofit Heritage Conservancy owns the Croydon Woods Nature Preserve and will host the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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The group will offer guided tours of the preserve, host local environmental organizations, and provide ideas for what residents can do to make a difference.
The free event will have numerous activities for guests of all ages along the trails.
At 11 a.m., the Heritage Conservancy will celebrate the official ribbon cutting on its Croydon Woods Outdoor Classroom that features boulder seating that will provide kids with an outdoor learning experience.
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Keystone Elementary School fourth-grade teacher Kati Bryson will be awarded with Heritage Conservancy’s Environmental Champion Teacher of the Year Award for her dedication to providing diverse and exciting opportunities to connect students with nature. Some of Bryson’s students will speak about what the outdoor classroom means to them.
“Nature and all the great things it has to offer are for each and every person to experience. We want everyone to feel welcome to enjoy this beautiful forest at Croydon Woods Nature Preserve,” said Shannon Fredebaugh-Siller, Heritage Conservancy’s community engagement programs manager. “We hope this community event will bring the neighbors out to learn about the animals that call the forest home and the important steps we are taking at Heritage Conservancy to protect this property for the public to benefit.”
The Heritage Conservancy purchased Croydon Woods from Dow Chemical for $2.05 million in 2016. The majority of the funds were from grants.
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The Bucks County Natural Areas Inventory ranks the woods as an “excellent example of coastal floodplain with boggy, forested wetlands along both the north and south branches and headwaters of Hog Run Creek where seven species of endangered plants and four species of threatened plants exist.” It is buffered by Bristol Township, county and state-owned property.
Decades ago, the site was used to dump mosquito-spraying chemical dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT. A cleanup and remediation effort was undertaken after a portion of the property was listed as a Superfund remediation site. The volatile chemical levels at the site were listed as being within acceptable limits in 2015.
