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A Wareham-based cranberry grower is under legal scrutiny for allegedly dumping sand into the Buzzards Bay watershed.
The Conservation Law Foundation sent a notice to file suit against A.D. Makepeace earlier this month for allegedly dredging and infilling sand into Southeastern Massachusetts wetlands without a permit, violating the federal Clean Water Act. The intent to sue comes after years of activism and a recent New Bedford Light investigation into the company’s extensive sand excavation operations.
Heather Govern, CLF’s vice president for clean air and water, said the activity is unpermitted. She said it’s a result of Makepeace shifting its business model away from cranberries and towards sand and other construction materials that fetch a much better price.
“You’ve got waterways and ecosystems that for hundreds of years did their job protecting communities from flooding, ensuring clean water,” Govern told The Light. “Now those wetlands are being filled in, because that’s what needs to be done in order for them to operate sand mining.”
The CLF’s notice argues that sand and other construction materials qualify as pollutants under the Clean Water Act and that the company should have sought a permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before filling its wetlands, and by extension the area’s waterways, with sand during construction. The letter also argues that Makepeace’s operations at four excavation sites “permanently and drastically altered the shape and topography of the wetlands and impacted hundreds of linear feet of perennial streams.”
Cranberry bogs allegedly out of compliance
- Smith-Hammond Bogs — 24 Federal Road/ 0 Golden Pond Road, Carver
- Wankinko Bogs — 46 Federal Road, Carver
- White Island Bogs — Wareham Road, Plymouth
- Canning Bogs — 0 Wihonet (Off East Head Wihonet and Tihonet Road), Plymouth
A.D. Makepeace has until Aug. 21 to comply or CLF will formally file suit.
Makepeace’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications Linda Burke disputed the foundation’s claims.
“Baseless attacks on the cranberry industry like this have been going on for more than five years and not once has any court, state agency, or local board found any impropriety,” Burke said in an emailed statement.
Govern clarified that if Makepeace does receive a federal permit, it could continue operations more or less unimpeded.
But the reason Makepeace’s activity is a concern, Govern said, is because Massachusetts’ wetlands play an important role in mitigating flooding along the coasts, which will become more frequent with the increase of heavy rainstorms and sea level rise.
“You don’t want to fill in wetlands, because then you’re basically removing that sponge that is going to protect against flooding waters flowing into towns and affecting people’s homes,” Govern said.
The Community Land and Water Coalition, an activist group based in Wareham, has opposed cranberry companies’ land use practices for years. In January, after repeated pressure from coalition activists, the Carver Conservation Commission issued a cease and desist order against Makepeace for its excavation practices at Smith-Hammonds Bogs at 24 Federal Road. Smith-Hammonds Bogs is one of the sites included in the CLF notice letter.
Coalition co-founder Meg Sheehan said the lawsuit is a major step to protect the “overlooked” waterways of Southeastern Massachusetts.
“These rivers, the Weweantic River, the Nemasket River, they never had the attention that the Charles River and the Taunton River had,” Sheehan said. “It’s really time to take a closer look at what’s happening in these watersheds with cranberry agriculture.”
Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.
Many of the post and beam houses of the 18th century are supported by massive American chestnut and white oak beams. They are hardwoods and do not rot. When the chestnut blight entered the United States from Asia with contaminated wood or trees, it spread along the eastern seaboard, necessitating the cutting of the chestnut trees. By 2013, an estimated 4 billion American chestnut trees died along the U.S. eastern seaboard. Stately homes, farm houses and barns of the eighteenth and nineteenth and twentieth centuries still stand despite the years from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to New England. Like the American elm also affected by introduced imported insects and disease, the American chestnut is being bred with some resilience with the hope that chestnuts will return and naturalize again.
Dutch elm disease is caused by an Ascomycete fungus that kills elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced to the U.S. in the 1920s.
Joe,
I’m delighted to see you’re still practicing. Barbara and I inhabit an 18th century timber frame, much of it of Chestnut.
Brian McMahon
It was really disturbing to see just how quickly AD Makepeace tore up their plot along Furnace Road. It’s going to take the earth a long time to heal from what they’ve done. Probably wishful thinking but I hope they get shut down for good.
Oh no, the horrors. So tired of environmental groups. Go pound the sand they moved!
Caring more about money than mother earth is always the case with greedy companies. We need to protect and invest in our natural surroundings.