A 27.36-acre property beside Breton Bay is slated for conservation through a Maryland Rural Legacy award: the state authorized $216,139.89 toward an easement purchase, with St. Mary’s County contributing $61,554.60, The Southern Maryland Chronicle reported. The property includes farmland, woods and about 400 feet of shoreline buffer. The funding was approved by the Board of Public Works on Oct. 29.
The project is within the Mattapany Rural Legacy Area. St. Mary’s County’s 2022 Land Preservation, Parks, and Recreation Plan reported that 6,966.8 acres of county farmland had been protected through Rural Legacy as of the end of 2021. That countywide figure is a historical baseline, not a count of land protected by this latest award or within Mattapany alone.
The county plan also identifies a natural-resource conservation focus area running through the Breton Bay watershed, linking the St. Mary’s River Watershed and Wildlands to the Huntersville Rural Legacy Area. That planning context describes a broader landscape connection; it does not establish why this particular property was selected.
An award is not a completed easement
The Breton Bay funding is part of a statewide round covering 19 Rural Legacy Areas. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources says the approximately $21 million in fiscal 2027 awards is expected to support easements protecting more than 4,240 acres. Those projected acres are not all completed transactions: as The Southern Maryland Chronicle noted, individual easement purchases must return to the Board of Public Works for approval as they are developed.
Rural Legacy has operated since 1997 and covers 36 locally designated areas across Maryland, the Department of Natural Resources says. Its awards support conservation easements, which keep land privately owned while limiting development under the agreement.
A separate Mattapany boundary decision
The current easement award is distinct from an earlier change to the area’s boundaries. The Southern Maryland Chronicle reported that the Rural Legacy Board added 17,065 acres to the Mattapany Rural Legacy Area in October 2022. That was a boundary expansion, not an easement purchase or part of the 2026 funding round.
