Within 48 hours after listing a piece of inherited property in the town of Polk, Walter Hembel met Geoff Maclay, this land trust's founding president.

It just so happened that the very land Walter was trying to sell was of considerable importance to the Cedar Lakes Conservation Foundation.  Long before Walter had owned the property, a significant portion of it had been a natural wetland.  At some time, truck loads of fill and soil were spread over the wetland to make it suitable for farming and to support heavy machinery necessary for planting and harvesting.  The importance of wetlands was not well understood in the earlier days of farming, and the consequences of altering this one would show years later.

By Mary Jo Joyce

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