EDWARDS â Marshy and heavily wooded, two St. Lawrence County conservation easement properties are the subjects of state recreation management plans this month. The Department of Environmental Conservation has opened public comment on the Western Lassiter Tracts, a pair of privately owned conservation easements, through June 30. Conservation easements are generally private-public agreements that allow private landowners to maintain some property rights â leasing and managing camps or facilitating limited timber production, for example â while the property is protected from other development. Every conservation easement is different, and DEC easements often permit public access. The Western Lassiter Tracts, in the southern part of the county near the Edwards hamlet of Pond Settlement, total roughly 2,200 acres between the Beers Lot and Pine Hill easements off River Road. Portions of the properties were secured through the 1986 state Environmental Quality Bond Act that funded land purchases in St. Lawrence and Herkimer counties.