SAVANNAH - After nearly 20 years of discussion, fundraising and hard work the doors finally opened on the Montezuma Audubon Center (MAC), part of the Northern Montezuma Wetlands Complex in the town of Savannah.

For town supervisor and member of the Friends of the Montezuma Wetlands Complex, Donald Colvin, this project has been a labor of love and long standing determination.

"For me the idea of doing this goes back at least 16 years," Colvin, who has been town supervisor for 47 years, said. "About seven or eight years ago we formed the Crucial Conservation Committee. The state was buying up land and we wanted to get something like a visitors' center. And we finally did, it has been a long time coming in my estimation, but we've finally got something together."

During those years the concept for the project grew and changed scope as more and more people took an active interest in getting the facility off the ground.

"At first we were going to get the money and do it ourselves," Colvin said. "And then it progressed, congressmen and senators got involved and we had more money to work with and Congressman Walsh got money and it progressed more. It grew and grew and then Governor Pataki got involved and there was even more money and now we have what is standing here today."

Among those who helped make the creation of the facility possible was Congressman Jim Walsh, who was instrumental in securing $400,000 for the center's construction as well as $2 million for land acquisition to expand the refuge.

Read the full report in Tuesday's edition of The Citizen.