Win, Win, Win – Sweatt Preserve Expansion in Hopkinton
By Karinne Heise
Shaded year-round by mature hemlocks and white pines and donated to Five Rivers in 2003, the Sweatt Preserve remains one of the loveliest conserved properties in Hopkinton. Beneath the tree canopy, cool woodland streams splash over stones in springtime and meander between mossy banks in the fall.
To enhance the protections for this waterway, Five Rivers purchased the abutting upland property from Tim Sweatt and his brother-in-law Stan Pastuszczak on February 19, 2026. With the Sweatt Headwaters Addition, the expanded preserve is nearly 100 acres.
Grants from the Moose Plate program and Merrimack Conservation Partnership provided partial funding for the addition. The bulk of the purchase price, though, came from a completely unanticipated source — Pats Peak Ski Area. Five Rivers learned about Pats Peak as a possible funding source from Lori Sommer, a member of Hopkinton’s Open Space Committee.
“I love that property,” she enthused, describing the Sweatt Preserve as one of her favorite spots in Hopkinton, as we had coffee at the Everyday Café in Contoocook. Her dog Hazel, always eager to cool off in streams on hot summer days, is also a fan of the preserve’s trails.
A longtime former Wetlands Mitigation Coordinator for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES), Lori knows protecting streams and wetlands is integral to “climate resilience.” To this end, she helped the department create the Permittee Responsible Mitigation Program, the matchmaking initiative that ultimately connected Pats Peak and Five Rivers.
The Permittee Responsible Mitigation Program seeks to balance the loss or disruption of a wetland from construction projects with resources to restore or conserve other wetlands. Any entity hoping to get a permit for a project that would disturb established wetlands has two options. Option One: the Permittee contributes money to the Aquatic Resources Mitigation Fund, which helps restore other wetlands in the state. Option Two: the Permittee does its own wetlands restoration work or helps a land trust with a wetlands protection project. When Emily Nichols of DES, a former colleague, mentioned Pats Peak’s need for a permit, Lori, knowing the Sweatt Addition was on the market, “connected the dots.”
Kris Blomback, General Manager of Pats Peak, coordinated the ski area’s application for a permit to construct a snowmaking reservoir on top of Craney Hill. He found the option of helping a land trust with a local preservation project to be more appealing than the option of paying into a general statewide fund, especially since the owners of Pats Peak, the Patenaude family, have close ties to Hopkinton as well as Henniker. As soon as Liz Short, Executive Director of Five Rivers, reached out to Kris about the conservation trust’s Hopkinton project, he responded enthusiastically: “We are truly excited about this project as it’s a win/win/win all the way around.”
Securing a permit to build a pond to store water for snowmaking is a big victory for Pats Peak. Climate change’s variable snowfall levels and fluctuating temperatures have made snowmaking essential for New Hampshire ski areas. And, as Kris said, “the only thing that makes snow is water.” A top-of-the-hill reservoir will allow Pats Peak to “capture water when it’s pouring rain” and store it until freezing overnight temperatures are optimal for snowmaking. With the capacity to make more snow in half the time, Pats Peak, according to Kris, will also substantially reduce its energy footprint — a bonus for the environment, too.
The win for Five Rivers in obtaining funds from Pats Peak to purchase the Sweatt Headwaters Addition comes with a caveat that also benefits the environment. As Jeff Evans, Director of Conservation for Five Rivers, noted, the trust “agreed to additional use limitations within a 100-foot Riparian Buffer around all aquatic resources on the property.” The prohibition of commercial forestry in the buffer zone will help keep waterways cool, thereby protecting wildlife habitat for species of special concern like Eastern Brook Trout, Wood Turtles and Black Racer Snakes.
The “Commerce Helping Conservation” banner that Pats Peak designed to announce all these wins — for Pats, Five Rivers, and the environment — is fittingly celebratory.
On a balmy April afternoon, I followed Sarah Allen, a wetlands ecologist and Five Rivers Board member, and her handsome dog Finn up the preserve’s nature trail built by Five Rivers volunteers. Near the trail’s second bridge, Finn happily cooled off in the water before Sarah pulled on his leash and led us upstream to the addition. Due to drought conditions, we didn’t find a vernal pool in the small, forested wetland, but Sarah identified emerging patches of moist-loving Wood Fern, Wintergreen and Goldthread. And we were surrounded by sounds of spring–a dog thrashing through underbrush, snowmelt cascading over rocks in streambeds, and birds singing from the treetops.
Win, win, win.
