Cranberry giant AD Makepeace continues its massive destruction of forests, wildlife, biodiversity for sand mining operations

State, local officials refuse to enforce the law while sand mining destroys Southeastern Massachusetts, threatens aquifer

Carver: New photos reveal AD Makepeace ongoing destruction of Pine Barrens on Federal Road

Carver, MA – AD Makepeace Co. continues its massive destruction of globally rare Pine Barrens forest mining for sand under the claim that this is an “agricultural operation.”

Everyone knows this ruse has been going on for far too long. 

This week the United Nations warned that the climate crisis has reached a point where nature won’t be able to recover. Why is the Baker Administration allowing this to continue? Makepeace has destroyed and continues to destroy hundreds of acres of forest for ground-mounted solar— sand mining first and destroying the land so that nothing can ever grow there in human time, according to scientists. 

Pictures this week show one of the many projects by Jim Kane, CEO of AD Makepeace on Federal Road in Carver, MA. This appears to be an expansion of the 50-acre Borrego Solar site that Makepeace clear-cut and strip-mined starting in 2018 for solar.

Today’s pictures show a project approved by the Carver Earth Removal Committee — a committee primarily made up of sanding mining, trucking and cranberry businessmen giving permits to their cronies.

In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, without proper public notice, the Carver Earth Removal Committee approved this massive project on Federal Road. This will strip mine 100 acres and take out over 4 million cubic yards of lucrative silica sand – about $36 million worth.

Jim Kane told the Earth Removal Committee the sand mining here was necessary to build a new cranberry bog reservoir. Who is kidding who?

The cranberry grower who ran the Committee for decades, John Garretson of Slocum Gibbs cranberry has resigned when STPB started asking questions about this.  His company does sand mining too, and the Committee gave his company a permit. 

Garretson has reportedly sold his land to Makepeace in a deal with Jim Kane. Another Earth Removal Committee member, John Shurtleff III, also a long-time cranberry grower who does business with Makepeace also resigned. The current chair, Robert Leronimo, admits he does business with Makepeace the company he is supposed to be regulating. The State Ethics Laws prohibit this kind of self-dealing. 

The Town’s Zoning Board of Appeals and Earth Removal Committee have been repeatedly asked to take enforcement action to protect our water and environment from this reckless strip mining. Why won’t they act?

Under Jim Kane’s leadership, in the last 10 years, AD Makepeace has strip-mined vast areas over a 15 square mile area, fragmenting habitat and installing over 300 acres of ground-mounted solar. This included many acres of land identified as “Priority Habitat” under the state Endangered Species Act and archeologically significant lands. This was all approved by the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the solar is being subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers under the state’s “SMART” solar program.

As the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns about ecosystem collapse in the face of the climate crisis, is this what the Baker Administration thinks is the way forward for a sustainable planet for future generations of Massachusetts residents?