Wareham: 160 Tihonet Road: AD Makepeace Co. sand mining impacts on endangered species
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Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program (NHESP) gives Makepeace “take permit” for 10 rare and endangered species and 50 acres of Priority Habitat 601
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Mining misrepresented as “cranberry agriculture”?
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No earth removal permit from Wareham making the sand mining illegal
From 2014 to 2021, AD Makepeace clearcut and strip mined 50 acres of pristine Pine Barrens habitat classified as Priority Habitat 601 by NHESP under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. Makepeace leased the land to Borrego Solar to build 50- acre solar porject. Now it is owed by another solar company, Clearway.
Background
In 2014, Makepeace applied to the Wareham Planning Board for site plan review to install Phase 1 of a 52 acre ground mounted solar project to be built by Borrego Solar. Makepeace’s Jim Kane wrote to the Planning Board Chair George Barrett this was likely Makepeace’s “last large ground mounted solar project under the existing regulatory system”. A few years later, the company revealed plans to build at least three more large grounded solar projects in Wareham: at 140 and 150 Tihonet Road and 27 Charge Pond Road. Makepeace built about 15 large ground mounted solar projects in Wareham and Carver. Most of these involved sand and gravel mining. Makepeace’s solar projects, most of them preceded by mining. As of 2025, Makepeace has proposed a 40 acre ground mounted solar project and BESS system at 0 Maple Springs Road in Wareham, 2 miles of solar canopy on its Canning Bogs on Frogfoot Brook and on Jordan Road in Plymouth.
At the 160 Tihonet Road, Wareham site, in 2014, Makepeace told the state environmental review office, Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) “The site will be cleared and graded to a level area ranging from approximately 64’ to 68’ above sea level”. MEPA ignored the environmental impacts of changing the topography and removing groundwater protection. It blindly repeated this in its MEPA Certificate. Makepeace’s consultant Beals + Thomas said in the MEPA Environmental Notification Form: it is “anticipated that excavated earth material will be used in the vicinity of the site such that travel via town roads will be avoided.” This is implausible.
According to witnesses, Makepeace trucked the sand to Carver to its Read Custom Soils for commercial sale and directly out of town.
Between 2014 and 2018, approximately 22 acres of the 52 acre site were cleared. Borrego installed the first phase of the Borrego solar project in approximately 2015.
State NHESP allows destruction of Priority Habitat
The 160 Tihonet Road location was once “Priority Mapped Habitat” designated under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. In 2015, Mass Wildlife, which is supposed to protect our wildlife and rare natural plant and animal communities gave Makepeace a permit to kill 10 Pine Barrens species protected by law under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act (MESA). This included the endangered Northern Barrens Tiger Beetle and Persius Duskywing butterfly.
After Makepeace destroyed 50 acres of Priority Habitat 601, NHESP redrew the map.
Below: This map from NHESP shows Priority Habitat (PH) 601 after Makepeace destroyed 50 acres by sand mining then installed a large solar project.
Below: AD Makepeace sand mining at 160 Tihonet Road, Wareham, 2018. The sand mining is clearly visible on Google Earth. Residents complained of non-stop tractor trailer trucks leaving the site. The Wareham Select Board and the state ignored the mining.
MassWildlife issued the permit through its Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP). The permit to kill, or “take” the species is ironically called a “Conservation and Management Permit”. The law requires “mitigation”. How can endangered species be conserved and “managed” when more and more habitat is destroyed? What is the cumulative impact of all the deforestation by Makepeace and other solar and sand mining operations in the Pine Barrens?
Below is an excerpt from the 2015 NHESP permit for Makepeace to “take” 10 legally protected species so it could say it was strip mining 50 acres “in compliance with the state endangered species law.”
Makepeace calls the mining and solar “cookie cutter”
In a letter to the Wareham Planning Board in 2014, Jim Kane, Makepeace CEO said “This project is the same cookie cutter solar project like Charlotte Furnace and Tihonet West solar in Wareham and Federal Road in Carver.” At these three other sites, solar was preceded by forest clear-cuts, endangered species habitat destruction and extraction and commercial sale of sand and gravel. Does “cookie cutter” mean environmental destruction and killing off endangered and rare species to Makepeace CEO Jim Kane? See the letter her:
