Residents, tribes and scientists press for moratorium, task force after widespread sand mining in southeastern Massachusetts

Hundreds of acres of cleared woods, community complaints about airborne dust and concerns from Wampanoag tribal leaders prompted extensive testimony at a Joint Committee hearing on bills proposing a temporary moratorium and a state study of commercial sand and gravel mining in southeastern Massachusetts.

Representative Mike Connolly, who introduced House Bill 9 18 to create an advisory task force and House Bill 9 48 to pause mining in specified counties, told the committee the proposals respond to a rapid increase in industrial-scale excavation that locals say is being permitted as ‘‘agricultural’’ work. “This is strip mining; it is removing uplands that protect the aquifer,” Connolly said during his remarks introducing the bills.

Environmental attorneys and conservationists described widespread forest removal across the state’s rare Atlantic coastal pine barrens, the damage to wetlands and the potential for contaminants to reach the Plymouth-Carver sole-source aquifer. “These operations have removed the land cover that provides the region’s natural filtration,” said Erica Keismer McKeown of the Conservation Law Foundation.

Community speakers — homeowners, farmers and public-health observers — reported sand dust coating yards and interiors, truck traffic on neighborhood roads, and chronic respiratory worries. Scientists from Olin College presented laboratory and particle analyses showing respirable crystalline silica in dust samples collected near an active mine; health experts at the hearing warned inhaled silica is a recognized respiratory toxin.

Indigenous leaders emphasized cultural and archaeological impacts. Linda Coombs, a tribal elder and traditional knowledge keeper for the Wampanoag people, urged legislators to recognize the land as ancestral territory and to halt operations that she said are destroying burial sites and cultural resources.

Local elected officials and town board members recounted frustration with limited municipal controls and inconsistent enforcement. “Boards of local government often lack the technical capacity to police large-scale extraction,” said Paul Smith of Plymouth, and several witnesses asked for state-level standards and monitoring that towns cannot impose on their own.

Speakers cited governance gaps: there is no uniformly applied requirement for groundwater monitoring, no statewide framework for air-quality controls specific to sand mining, and local permits sometimes allow deep excavation close to aquifers. Experts urged an advisory panel to recommend standards for groundwater and surface-water monitoring, air quality, worker protections, buffer zones, and meaningful tribal consultation.

The bills would pause new large-scale sand and gravel extraction permits in the specified counties for a year and create a task force of scientists, state agencies, tribal representatives and municipal officials to study impacts and propose a regulatory framework. Supporters said the pause would allow time for science-based rules that protect drinking water, public health and cultural resources without unduly penalizing legitimate farm uses.

Opponents — not prominent in the hearing — have argued that some sand materials are needed for construction and beach nourishment; supporters responded that any essential sourcing can be supplied under regulated conditions and that the present pace of extraction outstrips local planning and environmental safeguards.

The committee did not hold a vote at the hearing. Witnesses asked lawmakers to report both bills favorably and to require the study panel to include public-health monitoring, enforceable groundwater and air-quality standards, and tribal consultation.