A task force working to create the state’s first nature reserve outside the coast has more than 15,000 acres committed from landowners.

A deal to add 130 acres near Low Falls Landing in Calhoun County closed Wednesday, said Jane Clarke, director of land protection for Congaree Land Trust. The task force is negotiating on 2,500 more acres in Calhoun County.

The Congaree, Wateree and Santee Basin Initiative task force, created last fall by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, is targeting 214,998 acres to preserve land for wildlife and agriculture from development.

State agencies and land protection groups want to create something akin to the Lowcountry’s ACE Basin, a 167,000-acre reserve near Charleston that is home to such threatened species as loggerhead sea turtles and bald eagles.

The land for the Congaree, Wateree and Santee Basin Initiative — along the Congaree, Wateree and upper Santee rivers — is mostly in Richland and Sumter counties but includes smaller parts of Kershaw, Lexington and Calhoun.

At least part of the task force’s goal in its first year has been identifying areas in danger of imminent development.

“Basically, we’re focusing on all properties in proximity to rapidly developing areas,” said Buddy Baker, task force member and regional wildlife coordinator for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. “Columbia is growing so fast, the growth is moving in the direction of the focus area.”

But deterring all growth is not what the group is about.

“We understand the value of growth. We just want to direct it away from the focus areas,” he said. “We’re not anti-development, and half of the focus area is undevelopable anyway because it is wetlands.”

Included in the focus area is the 24,000-acre Congaree National Park, a portion of Manchester State Forest in Sumter County and the upper Santee Swamp.

But the project will not be completed anytime soon because the timetable depends largely on landowners.

“We see this as a perpetual project,” Baker said. “I don’t see us completing this project in my lifetime.”

Several property owners in the focus area have agreed to conservation easements in exchange for tax breaks and financial incentives.They have donated 15,335 acres.

Task force member Richard Watkins is considering applying for an easement on at least some of his 356 acres in Calhoun County.

“The reason I would enter into an easement is because I would like to see my land remain as it is, as opposed to selling it for the maximum amount of money,” he said.

Financial incentives often are not the main driver for property owners who consider easements.

Billy Cate, who is on the task force, owns 1,200 acres in Eastover with his brother and sister. They put an easement on 1,000 acres in 2001.

“I really came to think of the easement as the ultimate property right where we determined what our land was going to look like and how it would be managed for generations down the road no matter who owned it,” he said.

“I have enjoyed this area in the focus area all of my life. I’ve hunted, fished, camped and explored. It’s a very unique area.”

Reach Riddle at (803) 771-8435.