Groton Conservation Commission Allows Cowpond Brook Gate Open With Turtle Monitors Through November

GROTON -- July 14, 2026, Groton Conservation Commission extends Cowpond Brook Road access through November 1 with mandatory turtle monitors. The commission voted unanimously Tuesday to allow the contested access road at the Cowpond Brook playing fields to remain open whenever a trained turtle monitor is on-site, setting a hard permanent-closure deadline of November 1. Park Commission Chair Mary Jennings, Park Commission member Jack Petropoulos, and Groton-Dunstable Youth Baseball President Josh Pollock appeared before the board, describing access failures that had emerged in the road's first week of closure, including blocked dumpster and portable-toilet service, mobility-access barriers, and emergency-vehicle concerns. Petropoulos said a Park Commission pilot monitoring program, which required walking a ten-minute loop every 20 minutes for four-and-a-half-hour stretches, "is not scalable right now." Commission Chair John Giger drew the line at unmonitored access: "We can't just tell Natural Heritage we're going to open the gate and then not bother looking for turtles." The Park Commission committed to returning within three weeks with a DPW-backed proposal for a temporary connecting road from the soccer parking lot to the baseball fields, a route that was promised as part of the original 2009 field-construction agreement but never built.