Location: 71 Charlotte Furnace Road, Wareham, MA
● Owner: AD Makepeace Cranberry Co.
● Volume of Earth Removed: 3,059,380 cubic yards estimated.
● Permit: None. Wareham never issued any earth removal permits to A.D. Makepeace even though the Town’s earth removal bylaw requires such a permit. A Citizen Suit Demand letter and a Citizen Petition passed at Town Meeting in 2021 and an allocation for an investigation in 2022 have urged the Town to conduct an audit and address the impacts. Nothing has been done. A summary of this mining operation is here.
● Area Impacted: 50 Acres. The elevation was about 35 feet higher than the nearby road. If the site was graded to the nearby road, which it appears to be, there were potentially millions of cubic yards extracted from this site. Entire 50 Acres is Priority Habitat
● Claimed Reason for Mining: Site preparation for ground mounted solar
SECTION III: MINING SITES
● Solar: Yes: News article here. Renewable Energy Development Partners and/or Borrego Solar. In a letter to the Wareham Planning Board in 2014 about the 160 Tihonet Road solar project (with mining) A.D. Makepeace CEO and President Kane described them as ‘‘cookie cutter’ solar projects. This implies that A.D. Makepeace’s plan for solar was to conducting mining and then install solar.
● Water Supply: No well protection zones; nearby residential
wells
● Plymouth Carver Sole Source Aquifer: Yes
● Wetlands and Waterways: Surrounded by wetlands
● Archaeological Impacts: Appears not to have been
investigated.
● Environmental Justice Population: Yes (Income)
● Ecosystem: Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP) Priority Habitat 490, and Priority Estimated Habitat of Rare Wildlife. Department of Fish and Game, Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP) issued a take permit. This is explained in a Blog here.
● Public Subsidies: A.D. Makepeace receives large agricultural subsidies from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Agriculture for “cranberry farming”. The company also benefits from the technical assistance provided to “cranberry growers'' by the UMass Cranberry Extension Service, a taxpayer funded program to help the cranberry industry. In April 2023, the Extension Service broke ground on an $8 million expansion of the Cranberry Station in East Wareham. A.D. Makpeace’s CEO and President and Board Chair were in attendance.
A.D. Makepeace also benefits from electricity ratepayer subsidies for solar by leasing its land for solar projects that are subsidized under the state SMART Solar Program administered by Mass. Department of Energy Resources. U.S. Department of Energy federal subsidies are provided to DOER for the state’s solar program.
A.D. Makepeace keeps most of its land in “Chapter 61” which allows landowners to pay much lower real estate taxes if they do not develop their land. Mining operators such as A.D. Makepeace keep the land in Chapter 61 even when conducting commercial mining.
Cranberry companies also claim tax incentives for “revitalization” of bogs under state law.
SECTION III: MINING SITES
At this site, A.D. Makepeace has benefitted from solar subsidies and Chapter 61A real estate tax reductions
● Blog Link
