Case 01 · Carver + Plympton · Injunction in force
Ricketts Pond
Forty acres at the Route 44 interchange. An industrial-park filing in 2018 proposed 800,000 cubic yards of soil removal without ever mapping the excavation for state review. Eight years of mining later: the Town of Plympton sued its own miner in April 2026, a Superior Court judge ordered all earth removal and solid-waste activity stopped in May and required a restoration plan, and the state rejected the developer's request to skip a full Environmental Impact Report in June. The proposed next act is a 60-unit housing development on the mined-out land.
Status
Preliminary injunction in force (Plymouth County Superior Court, May 22, 2026). Full EIR ordered (EEA #15883, June 29, 2026). The town's complaint alleges two cease-and-desist orders went unheeded; the record also includes the operator's own written statement that it was importing material from other jobsites, on land inside a groundwater protection district.
Case 02 · Carver + Wareham + Plymouth · Federal notice served
The Largest Landowner
The region's dominant land company farms cranberries on roughly 1,750 acres and holds about 12,000. The public record now includes: a state administrative judge's finding of illegal wetland fill with consultant concealment, a 5-0 municipal cease-and-desist in January 2026, an appeals court reviving a citizen suit over mining framed as bog construction, and, in June 2026, a federal Clean Water Act notice from the Conservation Law Foundation naming four bog sites. The company denies wrongdoing and says cranberry farming still defines it.
Status
Per the reporting, the federal notice gives the company until August 21, 2026 to comply or face suit in U.S. District Court. On the record, the company confirmed excavated sand is sold through its soil subsidiary and declined to say how much. Its statement that no court, state agency, or local board has ever found impropriety sits alongside the administrative finding and the January cease-and-desist in the same public file.
Case 03 · Plymouth · Vote recorded 3-2
The Waived Refusal
130 acres of pine barrens over a wellhead protection zone, exiting agricultural tax status for a residential deal. State law gave Plymouth 120 days and a right of first refusal; per reporting at the time, the town's own Land Use and Acquisition Committee had formally recommended exercising it. On June 9, 2026 the Select Board waived it, 3 to 2. The deciding votes came from two members who had disclosed close personal relationships with the developer three weeks earlier.
Status
The project still needs Planning Board and Conservation Commission approvals. The privately negotiated memorandum of understanding is, per legal experts quoted in local press, unenforceable. Recall and resignation calls ran in the Plymouth Independent through late June. This case connects directly to the money trails page.
Case 04 · Rochester + Wareham · Monitoring gap
The Invisible Stack
One of the country's largest waste-to-energy plants burns about a million tons a year on the aquifer's southern edge. Its public real-time monitoring covers four criteria gases. Its dioxins, mercury, lead, and acid gases are checked by periodic stack tests, not continuous monitors, and the plant appears in no federal toxics-release database: waste combustors are not a covered sector. We verified that absence in EPA's own data this month.
Status
EPA compliance history shows no violations since 1994, a statement that certifies only what is measured. The gap between "in compliance" and "publicly quantified" is this case. A June 2026 fire in the plant's feed system, with mutual aid from nine towns, is part of the active file.
Case 05 · Middleborough + Carver · $33M and counting
The Water Bill
Middleborough broke ground in 2025 on a $33 million treatment plant after PFAS exceedances in its wells. It has named no source and retained no outside counsel to recover costs. Upstream, an actively regulated landfill site carries PFAS and solvent records going back decades, consent orders in 2004 and 2020, and a non-compliance notice in February 2026. The aquifer connects them; attribution is the open question.
Status
Ratepayers are currently the only party paying. Neighboring Bridgewater declared a water supply emergency in December 2025 with PFAS among the causes, and is interconnected with Middleborough's system. The cost-recovery question grows with every connection.
Case 06 · Plymouth · Permit denial upheld
The Decommissioning
The shuttered nuclear plant on the coast is held by a decommissioning company managing a trust fund of roughly $800 million. State environmental officials denied its wastewater discharge permit and the denial was upheld on administrative appeal in late 2025. Federal regulators separately cited a trust-fund use violation. The company won a federal preemption ruling against New York in 2025 that it can be expected to cite against Massachusetts.
Status
Final agency orders are pending. The trust fund is the deepest single pool of money in any of these cases, and how it is spent is a public question.