A $300,000 New York Department of Environmental Conservation grant will help keep a former Boy Scout camp in Lewiston from being developed, the Buffalo News reported. The Town of Lewiston, N.Y., will use the grant award announced this week to assist in its purchase of Camp Stonehaven, a 66.9-acre forested property the Greater Niagara Frontier Council of the Boy Scouts of America put on the market last year to help pay for its share of a proposed settlement in federal bankruptcy court for childhood sexual abuse victims. Lewiston town officials voted in March to sign a purchase agreement for the camp for $665,000, with plans to turn it into a nature preserve. The Council in May also sold Camp Schoellkopf in Wyoming County for $2.6 million. Lewiston Town Supervisor Steve Broderick said the town is waiting for word on whether it will also get a $319,000 Greenway Ecological Grant from the New York Power Authority before closing on the Boy Scout property. The Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy case has yet to be finalized, but 252 local councils have agreed to contribute a combined $519.6 million, plus a promissory note of about $100 million, toward a $2.7 billion settlement trust for more than 80,000 abuse victims. The Greater Niagara Frontier Council’s share of the settlement is pegged at $1.5 million.
