When you serve cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, it’s easy to picture bogs glistening in the autumn sun, steeped in tradition and nostalgia. Companies like A.D. Makepeace of Wareham, which claims to be the world’s largest cranberry grower, fuels this idyllic image. But the reality behind your cranberries – and the land they come from – is far less picturesque.
A.D. Makepeace, one of the largest landowners in Massachusetts with approximately 12,000 acres in Southeastern Massachusetts, is also among the Northeast’s largest aggregate distributors through its subsidiary, Read Custom Soils. The company’s primary revenue now comes from sand and gravel mining, not farming. Over the years, Makepeace has extracted at least 27,395,392 cubic yards of sand from Plymouth, Wareham, and Carver by claiming the mining is necessary to build new bogs.
A recent WCVB article titled “Mass. Cranberry Growers Fighting to Stay Competitive in Changing Landscape”(November 2024) highlights the economic struggles of the cranberry industry. While some growers have stayed committed to traditional farming, companies like A.D. Makepeace have leaned into sand mining to maintain profitability. They argue that massive sand extraction is essential for agricultural expansion, but these claims face growing scrutiny.
Approximately 71 percent of sand mining in Southeastern Massachusetts is conducted under the guise of cranberry agriculture. Companies like Makepeace and others exploit agricultural and zoning exemptions to mine sand at industrial scales, permanently altering the landscape.
The destruction is staggering. Mining operations strip away topsoil, threaten our sole-source aquifer, and leave behind scarred landscapes. Over 2,000 acres —including globally rare Atlantic coastal pine barrens – have been clear-cut and strip-mined in Southeastern Massachusetts. The sand mined from Southeastern Massachusetts doesn’t just fuel local profits – it meets global demand. Companies are capitalizing on a worldwide sand shortage, with prices increasing fivefold in recent years. Millions of cubic yards of sand have been extracted, with the trucks hauling it forming a convoy that could circle the Earth 1.3 times.
This scale of mining isn’t agriculture—it’s industrial exploitation. Meanwhile, taxpayers subsidize the cranberry industry with $1 million annually, even as much of this land is used for mining instead of farming.
Currently, two significant earth removal projects are proposed in Cedarville. One, at 71 Hedges Road, is proposed by E.J. Pontiff, a major sand and gravel operator in the region. Pontiff has been mining in Plymouth and Carver for decades under various names, often in partnership with A.D. Makepeace, according to town records and reports.
The other, proposed by P.A. Landers, a construction and aggregate company known for “moving earth for you since 1978,” seeks to remove 2 million cubic yards of sand at 0 Landers Farm Way. The town of Plymouth must scrutinize the motives behind these projects and prioritize safeguarding our community, water resources, and ecosystem.
If the cranberry industry wants to honor the traditions it claims to uphold, it must end its destructive practices. The Community Land and Water Coalition (CLWC) shines a light on these issues in its report, Sand Wars in Cranberry Country, which challenges the industry’s narratives and demands greater oversight and accountability.
This Thanksgiving let’s think beyond the cranberry sauce and consider the true cost of what’s on our table.
– Aaron Keaton
Keaton is a member of the Community Land and Water Coalition.