The Community Land and Water Coalition delivered a petition to Gov. Healey on August 20. The coalition is a network of SE Mass regional community groups and Wampanoag tribal leaders.
Their key demand is a moratorium, to stop mining while state and federal officials assess damage already incurred, and ensure protection of drinking water, rare pine barrens ecosystems, indigenous burial sites, and residential neighborhoods, from clearcutting, topsoil removal, and mining of carcinogenic silica sands over vast swatches of southeastern MA.
There are more than 110 mining sites over the Plymouth-Carver sole-source drinking water aquifer. The Coalition believes more than 2,600 acres have been mined without regulatory oversight since 1990. An estimated 61 million cubic yards of sand and gravel have been removed.
Many of the unregulated mining sites are adjacent to Environmental Justice neighborhoods in Carver and Wareham, such as Cranberry Village and other mobile home parks. This photo is of one day’s accumulation of sand on a car parked in a Carver driveway.
Sand removal is much more lucrative than cranberry agriculture, especially with current world-wide high price and demand for SE Mass sand for construction as well as silicon chips.
The petition has over 1,500 signatures and is addressed to Gov. Maura Healey, State Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Rebecca Tepper, and the Planning Boards of Carver and Wareham.
For more information including unforgettable aerial videos, and to sign the petition: https://communitylandandwater.org/
