west to expand enough to include almost all of the village and most of the town west of it. In Milan, the watershed covers a roughly semicircular area of the eastern half of town. The Rhinebeck portion, the smallest of any of the three towns in the watershed, includes the areas around Sepasco Lake and a large swampy area near the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome from which an unnamed tributary arises. Terrain in the watershed is hilly and wooded at its eastern end, with the highest point, an unnamed hill, north of Willow Glen Road in Milan. Just east of the Red Hook–Milan town line, the hills level off into gently rolling land, much of which is under cultivation. As the stream approaches the Hudson, the land becomes wooded again and slightly hillier, as it reaches the sloping land adjacent to the river bank. According to a 1991 study, land in the watershed is 51.1% forested, with 31% second-growth deciduous, 14% coniferous and 4% mixed cover. Another 25.8% is agricultural, mostly hayfields or row crops. Low-density residential use accounts for 7.5%, with medium- and higher density areas taking up another 5.4%; most of this use is in the village of Red Hook or subdivisions in the outwash plain north of it. Farmsteads bring total residential use to 13.6%. Commercial use accounts for only 2.8% of the watershed; again most of this is concentrated in the village of Red Hook. Lakes and wetlands cover 2%. There are no significant protected areas in the watershed. However, several conservation organizations hold easements preventing development on large tracts. Scenic Hudson has the largest, to the northeast of the village of Red Hook covering much of the Lakes Kill subwatershed, as well as another, smaller tract west of the village and north of NY 199, just west of Red Hook High School. It also holds the easements on the Montgomery Place and Bard College properties abutting the stream's lowest section. The Dutchess Land Conservancy holds easements to a large tract abutting the Scenic Hudson easement on its northwest, some of which overlaps into the Stony Creek watershed to the north. A portion of the tributary from the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome is covered by a Winakee Land Trust easement. History Formation The Saw Kill grew from one of the many tributaries of Lake Albany, a proglacial lake that filled most of the Hudson Valley north of the