“Fleetwood can be very proud of its water system,” read the opening line of the Water Supply section in Seventy-Five Years of Fleetwood History, a publication produced as part of Fleetwood’s Diamond Jubilee celebration in 1948, “It is considered to be one of the finest water systems in the state.”
Fleetwood owes the quality of their drinking water to the many natural springs and wetlands of Willow Creek’s headwaters, which have known the safety of Fleetwood’s forested hills for hundreds of years. From these humble seeps, kept pure, clean, and cool by the surrounding forest, the Maiden Creek watershed is fed and the Fleetwood community drinks.
All too often, natural community assets such as these are taken for granted because of their ongoing, reliable, but understated services. This is not the case for Fleetwood and the forests that shelter Willow Creek’s headwaters, known as the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodlands.
Creative collaboration with Berks Nature, and grant funding from PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) have successfully placed the 190.52-acre woodland – a critical and sensitive water supply – under the permanent protection of a conservation easement in 2024.
The wooded headwaters of Willow Creek have been supplying Fleetwood with their drinking water since 1891. In 1909, the Fleetwood Borough took over this water supply, purchasing the operation from the Fleetwood Water Company, and gradually grew the property from just 8 acres to about 190 acres today.
Throughout their ownership, Fleetwood Borough has taken great care in stewarding their reservoir’s woodlands. Conifer trees were planted along the reservoirs’ slopes, to prevent erosion and intercept runoff. Farm fields flanking the woodlands to the north were purchased and farming discontinued to buffer the drinking water supply from agricultural contamination.
Following the Olmstead model for municipal water supplies, the Fleetwood Borough also encouraged public use of the Reservoir Woodlands by placing picnic areas along the reservoir lakes and blazing trails across the wooded hillside.
In his youth, Pete Merkel rode these trails with his father. It was a favorite pastime of theirs to saddle up the horses – who were kept at the farm next door – and roam through these woods. Many of the forest’s trails today are the same as those Pete rode with his father, and to this day, he can recount the old routes, retracing his childhood steps.
After 30 years as the Vice President of Fleetwood Borough Council, protecting his childhood stomping grounds and this precious community resource has been one of Pete’s final acts in his role of service for the Borough; an achievement that would have been unattainable without the assistance of Craig Conrad, the Fleetwood Borough’s Public Works Director.
A tall stand of conifer trees, planted by the Fleetwood Borough to protect the community’s water supply.
While working on the Fleetwood Borough’s source water protection plan, Craig noticed that the WPA’s stonework, now over 70 years old, was starting to deteriorate across the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodlands.
Repairing these stone structures would be complicated and expensive. Adding to the angst: these repair costs would be absorbed by the community, reflected in higher water bills.
Prior to securing his Public Works position at Fleetwood, Craig had spent 20 years working for Oley Township, a community with nearly 3,400 acres protected under conservation easements held by Berks Nature. While Fleetwood Borough was unfamiliar with the power of conservation easements as a tool for land preservation, Craig – pulling from his time in Oley – saw the opportunity that his fellow municipal associates missed.
Craig approached Larry Lloyd, Berks Nature’s Senior Ecologist, with a proposal to purchase an easement on the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodlands. The easement would protect a critical source water area from future development, and the earnings from the sale could establish a stewardship fund for the land.
The money to repair the WPA’s stonework would come from this fund instead of the pockets of Fleetwood’s residents.
Larry and Berks Nature – seeing the obvious merits of both the property and Craig’s plan – were quick to join the Borough’s protection efforts and in October 2023, Berks Nature successfully secured a $276,000 grant from the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to cover the cost of purchasing the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodlands easement.
The land use and development restrictions put in place by a conservation easement naturally lower the market value of a property – its development value has been severely reduced or eliminated after all! Therefore, the value of an easement is the difference between the estimated fair market value of the property before and after the conservation easement is in place.
When we talk about donating or selling an easement, we are really discussing this monetary value and whether this amount is paid to the landowners (sale) or waived by the landowners (donated).
The easement was officially established in May 2024 and protects 190.52 acres of land, which includes over 170 acres of the Willow Creek’s forested headwaters and about 16 acres of water supply infrastructure for the Borough.
As it was before, the Fleetwood Borough continues to manage the Reservoir Woodlands as a community forest as well as a drinking water supply: a space for the public to enjoy and experience the forest’s guardianship of the water for themselves.
The forest is visited by a few consistent regulars and just this past spring, the Fleetwood Library’s popular Tigers in the Park program brought its families out to the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodlands and fell in love with the verdant sanctuary. Although neither Pete nor Craig want to lose the serenity of this place, they both hope others will discover the joy that comes from walking through these woods.
Scenes from the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodland, source water protection area for the Borough and public nature preserve for the community.
Pete Merkel, Vice President of Fleetwood Borough Council, and Craig Conrad, Fleetwood Borough’s Public Works Director, discuss the future of the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodlands while walking its trails.
The energy of Pete and Craig’s love for this forest is inspired but focused: “Our goal is preservation, education, conservation,” says Craig to which Pete emphatically agreed.
The plans to reach this goal are big, especially for a man who, at the time, was just two weeks away from retirement. But to Pete, that’s much of the point. “It’s our goal to get this in place so that it’s on-going even after [Craig] and I aren’t here to look over it.”
But there’s another way Pete’s love and reverence for these woodlands will live on; the Fleetwood Reservoir Woodland’s primary trail – a wide, green ribbon tracing the hillside between the retired reservoir and stately hardwoods – will soon bear his name as the Peter Merkel Trail.
Between the conservation easement, the stewardship fund, and community’s long-standing legacy of source water protection, Pete, Craig, and the entire Fleetwood Community do indeed have a lot to be proud of.