Part of a 90-foot waterfall along Bear Swamp Creek that once hosted a distillery and sawmill has been purchased by a conservation group promising to maintain public access to the spot.

Ithaca-based Finger Lakes Land Trust bought a portion of Carpenter's Falls, a historic and awe-inspiring town of Niles attraction one mile southwest of Skaneateles Lake. The land trust has worked to maintain the pristine quality of one of the lake's tributaries. The land trust purchased the property for $125,000 from Kevin Digney June 28, according to real property records.

"What really motivated the land trust to act quickly was the possibility of losing traditional public access to the area," said Andrew Zepp, the land trust's executive director. "As generations change, some new owners are concerned with liabilities, and public access disappears."

The land trust already has a several-acre parcel a half-mile upstream from the falls, as well as a contract to purchase forests connecting the Bahar Nature Preserve with the Carpenter's Falls parcel. County legislator Steve Cuddeback, R-Niles, is glad that access to Carpenter's Falls will be kept public.

"It's just a breathtaking place. It's really made for that. As long as you stay on the trail," said Cuddeback, who, as an emergency services official, has responded to a fatality at the towering falls.

The land trust hopes to transfer ownership of the site to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The DEC has partnered with land trusts and other nonprofits to take land off the development market as part of an open space plan. All properties acquired by the DEC under this plan must allow public access. Bear Swamp Creek and Carpenter's Falls, as well as the eastern Ontario Lake shoreline and islands and Long Point state park in Ledyard, were designated priority projects in 2002 for preservation as open spaces.

"Wetlands and shorelines, and preserving open space and preserving access to waterways, is an important thing," said Diane Carlton, the public participation specialist for the DEC region that includes Cayuga County. "It's becoming more and more difficult in the Finger Lakes to have access by the public because so much of it has been privately purchased."

The land trust wants to transfer the new land parcel to DEC because it is such a popular spot and will require more maintenance than its small staff can handle, Zepp said. A historic hiking trail called the "jug path" heads to the falls, commemorating how residents boated down Skaneateles Lake and hiked one mile to pick up their liquor from the distillery. It will be determined later if the land trust will donate the Carpenter's Falls site to the state or sell it, but it will definitely be transferred, Zepp said.

The land trust is launching a $400,000 fund-raising campaign to cover the cost of its newest site, as well as the land under contract.

Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net