The Whipstock Hill Preservation Society

Whipstock Hill Preservation Society is a conservation and advocacy organization centered on the New York/Vermont border. Whipstock Hill is located in West Bennington and East Hoosick just north of Vermont 9/New York 7.

In the past 30 years the organization has used its resources to foster agricultural land easements and projects that foster public access to areas of environmental and scenic importance.

Local community members from East Hoosick, NY and West Bennington, VT in 1995 organized to oppose a proposed rock mine on Whipstock Hill, an important local landmark. They sued the mine operator, the Wm E. Dailey Company to try to stop the mine.

While the suit was unsuccessful, a financial settlement with the Dailey Company provided the financial resources necessary to monitor the mine’s operation and contribute to land conservation easements and projects to foster local access to natural areas in the Towns of Hoosick and Bennington.

 

WHIPS has a history of lobbying state and local governments to adopt policies to preserve and protect natural and scenic resources in the East Hoosick-West Bennington area such as banning new billboards in Hoosick and designating previously unrecognized wetlands.

WHIPS has also documented and reported activities that violate local, state and federal environmental laws, and pressed the relevant agencies to rigorously enforce those laws.

Among the projects supported by WHIPS are:

Farmland conservation projects in the West Bennington-East Hoosick area;

The Hoosick River Greenway in Hoosick Falls;

The Walloomsac Headwaters Park and Recreation Area in Bennington;

The Ninja Bike Path along the Walloomsac River in Bennington;

The George Aiken Wildflower Garden at the Bennington Museum;

Habitat rehabilitation and elimination of invasive species on lands owned by the Fund for North Bennington

WHIPS is a self-sustaining not-for-profit foundation with a volunteer board of trustees. It has extended its interest to include the towns of White Creek and Petersburg in New York, and the towns of Pownal and Shaftsbury in Vermont.


For further information, please write to

Whipstock Hill Preservation Society
P.O. Box 356
Bennington, VT  05201.