Radio towers delay completion of Fairhaven marsh restoration

FAIRHAVEN — In November, nearly 200 volunteers descended on the sandy peninsula called Marsh Island — known to some as “Tin Can Island” — to clear away over 24,000 pounds of litter and debris from the newly restored coastal marshland.

The project was the culmination of over 20 years of on-and-off efforts to purchase and restore Marsh Island to healthy, public wetland. But two radio towers on the southern half of the peninsula are keeping the second phase of the restoration on hold.

Contrary to its name, Marsh Island is a peninsula in the New Bedford-Fairhaven Harbor, accessible through Taber Street in Fairhaven. Though it was historically salt marsh, the land served as a granite quarry in the late 1800s and later as a dumping ground for dredged sand. When Buzzards Bay Coalition began fundraising to purchase the peninsula in 2002, its goal was restoring the land to salt marsh.

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The project fits into New Bedford and Fairhaven’s larger goals of restoring more coastal marshland along a primarily hardened, industrial waterfront. Salt marsh serves as an important flood mitigation zone for humans and a protected nursery of sorts for aquatic species before they move to the open water. Buzzards Bay Coalition estimates that New Bedford and Fairhaven have lost about 140 acres of natural marshland.

In October 2025, the organization completed its restoration of 11 acres of salt marsh on the northern half of the peninsula and opened it to the public with new walking trails. The grand opening was immediately followed by the ambitious litter cleanup led by the groups Operation Clean Sweep and Be the Solution to Pollution.

But Buzzards Bay Coalition cannot begin work restoring the rest of Marsh Island until 2030, when the radio towers’ owner’s lease on the property ends. Years of back and forth between the coalition and multiple radio station parent companies haven’t moved up this timeline. Until then, the conservation nonprofit can only maintain the property so that it’s ready when restoration work finally breaks ground.

The delays were especially frustrating for Buzzards Bay Coalition restoration ecologist Sara Quintal, who has led the project and others like it since 2011. As she surveyed her handiwork at November’s cleanup on the northern half of the marsh, the twin radio towers loomed in the background.

“It was a massive headache trying to get anyone from the radio station to focus on working with us to figure out the details needed for implementing the restoration,” Quintal said. “There were many, many go’s to try to get to construction, but a lot of moving parts and a lot of frustration.” 

Crossed wires

First built in 1948, the bright red radio towers on Marsh Island have hosted a range of local programming over the decades, and have broadcasted New Bedford’s WBSM-AM radio since 2000. When the Fairhaven Acushnet Land Preservation Trust purchased the south parcel in 2007 with the intention of transferring ownership to the Buzzards Bay Coalition, it was on condition that the property owner keep the radio towers’ existing lease, set to expire in 2030.

“When the design was first being worked out, that was way back in the early 2000s, when 2030 seems like a very far, long time away,” Quintal said.

Before long, the conservation nonprofit realized that its goal to restore Marsh Island to its namesake might prove unexpectedly complicated. The problem is less the towers themselves, Quintal said, and more the spiderweb-like network of wires and cables buried just a few inches underground. The network spans multiple acres — most of the southern half of the peninsula.

In 2009, Buzzards Bay Coalition took ownership of both parcels on Marsh Island and began talks with Citadel Broadcasting, then the owner of the radio towers, to see what, if any, work could be done on the property. According to Quintal, Citadel initially agreed to let the coalition perform restoration work around the time the towers would get a prescheduled infrastructure upgrade, during which the network of wires would be buried further underground.

But the project eventually fell victim to the radio industry’s own vicissitudes. In 2011, Cumulus Media Group absorbed Citadel Broadcasting in a merger, taking ownership of the towers and putting talks with Buzzards Bay Coalition back to square one. A year later, Townsquare Media purchased the towers, along with WBSM, Fun 107, and a number of other local stations, from Cumulus Media Group. 

“Every time it came under new ownership, we had to reintroduce the project to the new owners, and it was not very easy getting their attention on this project,” Quintal said. “Because they’re such large-scale companies, I don’t think this one ranked very high on their priority list.”

On standby

Townsquare Media still owns and operates the Marsh Island radio towers. In 2017, the company looked into the cost of upgrading its infrastructure, Quintal said, which ended up being between $410,000 and $460,000.

The estimate was significantly higher than what the previous owners had expected back in 2009, Quintal said. Around that same time, an inspection revealed that the towers could function perfectly well without any repairs.

In 2019, Buzzards Bay Coalition decided to split Marsh Island’s restoration into two phases: the first phase, which began in 2023 and finished this fall, and the second phase, which would begin after Townsquare Media’s lease on the radio towers expires in 2030. The total restoration work, not including initiatives like November’s litter cleanup, will cost roughly $4.6 million once completed.

Mark Stachowski, Townsquare Media’s market president, said in a phone call that he did not know where WBSM’s broadcast would go after 2030, but that the company was in “preliminary discussions” to find its next broadcast location. He also said he knew very little about the company’s conversations with Buzzards Bay Coalition in 2017, but that he had last spoken with the conservation nonprofit about a year ago.

“We certainly don’t want to stand in the way of or hold up any conservation efforts there,” Stachowski said. “That being said, income for our company comes from that tower, and until we can find a concrete plan — and we have spent some time trying to come up with one — but as of right now, we don’t have anything to share.”

Stachowski added that the issue was not as simple as finding another available tower, since a new location would also affect which communities hear WBSM’s signal. Since the lease does not end until 2030, the company has opted to take its time and do its research, he said.

“Certainly we want to do everything we can to assist Buzzards Bay,” Stachowski said. “Hopefully sooner rather than later we come up with a viable solution.”

In the meantime, Buzzards Bay Coalition has done what work it can on the southern half of the peninsula — mainly clearing away invasive species like phragmites, grey willow, asiatic bittersweet, and multiflora rose, so that when the native species do get reintroduced, they can take better hold.

“Invasive plants are like the bullies of the plant world,” Quintal said. “So once they get established, they’re really aggressive, and they are able to outcompete native plants, meaning they will grow taller, bigger, and literally push them out.”

Buzzards Bay Coalition is still in talks with Townsquare Media to see whether the organization will allow an easement alongside the radio towers, which would allow the public better access to the restored northern half of the property, Quintal said.

New Bedford and Fairhaven residents, meanwhile, can see the completed half of Marsh Island for themselves through the entrance on Taber Street.

“We’re excited that we’re able to finally open it up to the public,” Quintal said, “Even though the whole site’s not completely done yet.” 

Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.

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