Times Observer file photo A series of summer camps are part of how the Warren County Conservation District utilizes the Hatch Run Demonstration Area. The 352 acres is subject to a purchase agreement with the Department of General Services that the county’s state legislators would like to see revolved.

The Hatch Run Conservation Demonstration Area checks in at just over 352 acres.

It’s subject to an ongoing purchase agreement that runs out next year between the Warren County Conservation District and the Pennsylvania Department of General Services.

And Warren County’s local legislators want to get it resolved.

Sen. Scott Hutchinson said Thursday at the Farm Bureau’s meeting that the WCCD was to pay DGS back over a period of 10 years. He said selective timber cuts were used to cover the payments.

“The value of timber is not where it was,” he said, and there remains $150,000 unpaid.

Hutchinson DGS now may extend the contract for another 10 years while he said he thought that DGS might forgive the balance.

According to discussion at the meeting, the WCCD owns the site where its building is located. This 352 acres includes the demonstration area, public gardening space and trail system.

The property acquisition goes through DGS because the land was once part of the state hospital complex. Hutchinson called that a “good use of the property” and said the state is not going to get great value for it otherwise.

Mary Kushner, Hutchinson’s field representative, added that clear cutting the land wouldn’t cover the $150,000 and would defeat the conservation purpose anyway.

Hutchinson said he would like an outcome where the WCCD can secure the property permanently without scrambling for funding.

That outcome “seems like the right thing to do,” he said, but added that discussion with the new DGS secretary “hasn’t been as welcoming as we thought it might be.”

“I don’t want to blame DGS,” he added, calling it a “bureaucratic thing.”