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MATTAPOISETT — About a year ago, the former cranberry bogs off Acushnet Road in Mattapoisett looked like a construction site. Heavy machinery and trailers dotted the 55-acre plot as contractors worked on the land. 

Now those crews are gone. Long-dormant grasses and wetland vegetation have emerged from the earth. Four ponds ripple and shimmer in the sun. Boardwalks and bridges connect an enhanced two-mile trail network around the ponds.

“This is just a glimpse of the lushness” that the bogs’ restoration will create, Buzzards Bay Coalition President Mark Rasmussen said to a small crowd last week at an event celebrating the reopening of the property to the public. It marked the recent completion of restoration work, and the culmination of a 15-year effort to retire these bogs and turn them back into freshwater wetlands and native grasslands.

The new Mattapoisett nature preserve, named The Bogs, will improve the land’s ability to absorb and filter water moving into the nearby Mattapoisett River. Credit: Adam Goldstein / The New Bedford Light

“You all are in for a treat,” said Massachusetts Department of Ecological Restoration Director Beth Lambert at the event. “It’s one of the most incredible experiences that anyone can have to witness a wetland healing itself.”

The coalition’s new Mattapoisett nature preserve, named The Bogs, won’t just offer people more green space and recreation opportunities. It will improve the land’s ability to absorb and filter water moving into the nearby Mattapoisett River, which feeds Buzzards Bay. The wetlands and grasses will also store and filter water flowing into the Mattapoisett River Valley aquifer underneath. That’s a drinking water supply for the towns of Rochester, Fairhaven, Marion and Mattapoisett. 

The crew that restored the site built a network of boardwalks and bridges for walkers. The paths connect to eight miles of existing trails in the wooded Mattapoisett River Reserve. The crew also excavated pond features, which will be used not just for water storage and wildlife habitat, but for ice skating — a time-honored local use of the bogs in winter. 

Lambert said more benefits of this $2.8 million restoration will bloom next spring and summer, and in the coming years. Residents should start seeing new plants, new fish, different flowers, and different insects. She said that The Bogs project is a model that the state will showcase to show how to restore other cranberry bogs.

“This is the first time a restoration project has combined fish, wildlife, ice skating, trails, recreation, nature, clean water, all in one place,” she said. 

The project did not come without resistance. Seeing the former cranberry bogs removed has been difficult for local residents, Mattapoisett Town Administrator Mike Lorenco said at the event. 

When the restoration work was going on, Lorenco got a lot of complaints. He added that he wasn’t a fan of the coalition’s project when it first started. As a child, he learned to ice skate at the cranberry bogs. 

“Change is hard for humans,” Lorenco said. “Sometimes it’s hard to disassociate our thoughts and memories.”

Unlike people, “nature doesn’t have a hard time with change,” he added. And the change will benefit the town.

“This new site is an opportunity to accept change, make new memories, and walk the trails,” Lorenco said. 

How they did it

The Buzzards Bay Coalition’s plans to restore the site date back to 2009, when the Decas Cranberry Company called the organization and offered to sell a plot of its land: an older set of bogs near a drinking water supply well. Decas had noticed the coalitions’ land acquisitions around the Mattapoisett River watershed. 

The property had been in cranberry farming since the 1930s. The coalition saw a lot of reasons to get it into conservation, and restore its natural wetlands and grasslands. 

The coalition wanted to improve water quality and quantity in the Mattapoisett River watershed. It wanted to improve local wildlife habitat on the land, and improve its storm and drought resilience amid climate change. It wanted to improve local access to green space and recreational opportunities. 

It also wanted to remove the old cranberry bogs, a source of pollution close to a public drinking water supply well and the Mattapoisett River. Cranberry bogs can leach pesticides and nutrients like nitrogen into the environment. 

So a partnership was established between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Decas Cranberry Company, and the Buzzards Bay Coalition. 

A crowd gathers for a November ceremony celebrating the reopening of The Bogs in Mattapoisett as a public nature preserve. Credit: Adam Goldstein / The New Bedford Light

Decas retired the bogs and put the land into conservation through the USDA’s Wetlands Reserve Program in 2011. Then, Buzzards Bay Coalition researchers began investigating its historical hydrology, and the presence of local species of concern, like the eastern box turtle. 

The coalition then brought on GZA GeoEnvironmental — a national engineering firm that works on wetlands restoration — to develop the project design together with Decas, the USDA, and the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration. They came up with a plan to “undo 80 years of farming impacts on this landscape,” Rasmussen said. 

The cranberry growers formerly on the site had created a network of culverts, buried pipes, canals, irrigation tubing, and dikes. This was to move water and berries between bog sections over the course of the year, Rasmussen said. In doing so, the growers altered Tripps Mill Brook, a stream that flows into the Mattapoisett River. 

The farmers also flattened wetlands and grasslands and put a thick layer of sand down on the property, to enable cranberry vines to grow. This sand layer prevented these native plants from growing. 

Designing and permitting the restoration project took a long time. 

In October 2023, the coalition’s contractors began removing those culverts, buried pipes, irrigation tubing, and large portions of dikes to renaturalize the flow of water across this site. They restored Tripps Mill Brook, and connected it to the Mattapoisett River to improve fish passage and wildlife habitat. 

The contractors then scraped the thick layer of sand off the property. That allowed the native seed bank in the dormant wetlands and grasslands below to be exposed to water and surface conditions, and regrow. They also reseeded some upland grasses. 

Lorenco said he may lace up his skates to glide on frozen ponds at The Bogs in coming winters. 

“I hope the community gets to enjoy it,” he said.

Email environmental reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@newbedfordlight.org.

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