NOTE: the following press release is from one of our fiscally sponsored projects, Community Land and Water Coalition (previously known as Save the Pine Barrens).
September 22, 2025
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Meg Sheehan, Attorney for Plaintiffs
ec*************@********il.com
Victory for Environmental Protection
Court Upholds Grassroots Group’s Case Against A. D. Makepeace Company in Sand Mining Case
September 22, 2025, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
In a landmark decision on September 19, 2025, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled unanimously in favor of a grassroots group’s lawsuit to protect the environment from the devastating impacts of sand mining by A. D. Makepeace Co. of Wareham and its subsidiary, Read Custom Soils, LLC, in Carver. The Court vacated the lower court’s dismissal of the case and allows it to go to trial.
The grassroots group of individuals and Community Land & Water Coalition, Inc. (formerly Save the Pine Barrens) filed the case in 2022 under the state’s powerful Citizen Suit Law to enforce the Carver Earth Removal Bylaw. The Citizen Suit Law allows a group of ten residents to sue to prevent “damage to environment,” when a person or company is violating an environmental law. The law requires that the group first give notice to the Attorney General and the government agency responsible for enforcing the law, and if they do not act, the group can step in to enforce the law.
The grassroots group gave notice of the violations to Attorney General and the town, but neither acted. The group stepped in to enforce the law by filing the lawsuit in 2022. The lawsuit claims Makepeace is violating Carver Earth Removal Bylaw by mining without valid permits and exploiting protections for legitimate cranberry agriculture to avoid prohibitions against sand mining. The Carver Earth Removal Committee granted permits year after year, even though Makepeace did not build the cranberry bogs it showed on the permit plans. The Bylaw prohibits stand-alone sand mines like Makepeace is operating. The lawsuit claims actual or probable harm occurred over a decade to the Commonwealth’s natural resources, including the Plymouth-Carver sole source aquifer, a vital drinking water source for the area.
A key quote from the Appeals Court highlights the environmental damage from sand mining:
“Land – earth – is a critical natural resource, and Carver regulates earth removal activity by bylaw to protect the use of that natural resource and to guard against the environmental effects of such uses. There can be little doubt that the systematic stripping of earth and topsoil — not to mention tree removal, leading to increased exposure to erosion — constitutes damage to “soil resources.”
“This ruling is a testament to the power of collective action in the fight to protect land and waters and for environmental justice,” said Attorney Meg Sheehan, who represents the plaintiffs. “Other towns, such as Wareham, Halifax and Plymouth, have similar earth removal laws and the Court has reinforced the legal framework that empowers everyday people to advocate to protect our land and water.”
More information: The case name is Troy Currence and others vs. A.D. Makepeace Co. and others, Appeals Court case No. 24-P-666.
