On May 13, more than one hundred Plymouth residents filled the Buzzards Bay Coalition's Onset Bay Center to see what would become of the cranberry bogs west of Redbrook. On the way out, one of them summed it up in a line the Coalition printed in its own account of the evening: "We're losing a pond, but we are gaining a river."
The open water and bog flats along Redbrook's western side are farm infrastructure. Dams hold the water back, and pipes and ditches move it around the bogs. Within a few years most of that is scheduled to come out. A second, separate deal on Route 25 would put a large cranberry farm at Redbrook's southern end on the same path. Redbrook was built inside a working cranberry farm, and both of those edges are now planned to stop being farmland. Each has its own deadline.
The Agawam corridor changed hands in December
In December 2025, the Buzzards Bay Coalition bought a corridor of 650-plus acres along the Agawam River from A.D. Makepeace, the company that developed Redbrook. The Coalition's 2025 accomplishments report puts the price at $2.6 million and says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration paid for it. The Coalition's announcement also credits private donors.
The Agawam is an 11-mile river. It starts at Plymouth's Halfway Pond, runs through cranberry bogs and forest, then joins the Wankinco River to form the Wareham River estuary before reaching Buzzards Bay. At the Plymouth Conservation Commission's September 15 meeting, the Coalition described the land as lying west of the Redbrook development. It will carry a conservation restriction held through the Commonwealth.
A.D. Makepeace President and CEO James F. Kane welcomed the sale in the Coalition's January announcement. "We're looking forward to seeing this land thoughtfully returned to a natural state that benefits both the ecosystem and the greater community, and we see the project as a natural asset for Redbrook," he said.
The harvest outlasts the sale
The land changed owners in December, but it is still being farmed. The Coalition says cranberries will be harvested through fall 2027 while the science, restoration design and permits are completed. For anyone who walks past the bogs, the next two harvest seasons should look a lot like the last ones.
The schedule the Coalition gave the Conservation Commission in September runs in this order:
- Late fall 2026. Initial permitting begins, coordinated with Wareham.
- Summer 2027. Final design is expected.
- Fall 2027. The first phase of construction starts with removing the Besse Dam.
- Through 2028. Construction continues in phases, according to the Coalition's June update.
The two dams are the Besse Dam at Besse Reservoir and the Kennard Dam at Kennard Reservoir. At the September meeting, a commissioner asked why the lowest dam would come out first. The Coalition's Brendan Annett said the stream's response would be "more benign" with the lowest dam removed first, and that sediment and water flow could be managed with flow controls. The Coalition has also said no work in the existing stream channel will happen during the herring run.
What the bogs turn into
Taking out a dam lets water out of a reservoir. Turning the bogs back into a river channel takes more work. The Coalition will remove pipes and underground irrigation, restore a natural river channel, fill the ditches, smooth the berms, and take sand off parts of the bogs to expose the original wetland peat underneath. No material will leave the site. Sand from the berms and bog flats will go into the ditches and the upland grass areas.
Agricultural reservoirs and bogs will slowly transform into more natural wetlands once the dams are removed. Trees will start to grow on the riverbanks, shading and cooling the water for native fish. Other areas will retain open vistas where habitats are a mix of open water, marsh, and grassland.
That passage, from the Coalition's June update, describes the land west of Redbrook after the dams come out, with shaded riverbanks in some places and open water, marsh and grassland in others.
The project is aimed at fish. In September, the Coalition told the Conservation Commission its goals were restoring native brook trout runs and American eel habitat, improving the river's wetlands, and lowering the water temperature while keeping trail connections in place. In March, the state awarded the Town of Plymouth $210,000 for preliminary designs covering 3.7 miles of Agawam stream habitat. That work includes fish passage up to Halfway Pond by removing the two dams. Annett has pointed to the Coalition's earlier restoration of the Weweantic River in Wareham, which the Coalition says brought a significant increase in both the number and variety of fish.
What stays put for Redbrook
The Coalition talked with Redbrook before it talked with the wider public. It first met with Sustainable Redbrook, a neighborhood group, to learn how residents use the areas around the bogs for recreation. Here is what it has committed to so far:
- Trails and access points. Current trails and access points stay open to the public. The Coalition will monitor how they are used and adjust signs and gates as needed.
- Redbrook's own infrastructure. Access roads and utility easements that serve Redbrook remain on the property.
- The Kennard Barn. The barn came with the purchase and will continue to be available for programs. It looks west over undeveloped land along the river.
- During construction. Active work areas will be closed to Redbrook residents for safety, and the work will happen in phases.
The same change is coming to Redbrook's southern edge
The second deal is on Route 25. In May, Annett told the Plymouth Select Board that the Coalition had signed a $6.25 million purchase and sale agreement for the nearly 400-acre Mann cranberry farm, and that it plans to retire the bogs to improve coastal water quality. The Community Preservation Committee's July 23 minutes break it down. The farm covers 391 acres, 330 in Plymouth and 61 in Bourne. Forty-eight of those acres are described as part of Redbrook, 103 acres would be resold subject to a conservation restriction, and 240 acres would become Buttermilk Conservation Land owned by the Coalition. Closing is set for December 2027. The Coalition would manage the trails and public access in coordination with Plymouth and Bourne, and it would lead the bog restoration. The two houses and the farm buildings are part of the sale. The wind turbine lease is not, and it stays with the seller.
The farm has a history with those turbines. In an earlier profile by the Bourne Enterprise, third-generation grower Keith Mann said leasing land for the four 328-foot turbines on Route 25 helped keep the farm running. "As long as this farm remains economically viable, it keeps it as open space," he said. If the sale closes, the open space would be protected through conservation instead of through farming.
Plymouth's share is Article 22. It asks for $750,000 in Community Preservation funds for a conservation restriction, with the town holding the restriction on 179 acres. The Select Board recommended it 5–0 and the Advisory and Finance Committee recommended it 7–3, and the article went to Fall Town Meeting on October 17. In the committee discussion, the town's Director of Energy and Environment, David Gould, said the bogs would not be used and would go back to their natural state, and that the town is not buying any land. Committee Chair Ed Bradley said no money would be released until the restriction is recorded at closing. The town's money depends on about $5.5 million in other funding, and the Coalition is working with Bourne on that town's portion.
The committee materials describe the Mann land as more than 390 acres of forest, wetlands, cranberry bogs and habitat near Buttermilk Bay that connect more than 900 acres of existing open space. The same thing is happening downstream. In September the Coalition took ownership of 100 acres of former Mann bogs along Route 6 in Wareham, where it plans to restore Beaverdam Creek. On October 26, Wareham Week reported that Wareham voters had approved $1 million toward conserving 348 acres of bogs on the Lower Agawam. That land is still owned by A.D. Makepeace and is expected to be farmed for about two more years.
A place to see the finished version now
The Agawam work is still being permitted. The Red Brook trails are already open. The Trustees' Lyman Reserve is free and open daily from sunrise to sunset. It has a 1.5-mile loop from the parking lot to Red Brook and a quarter-mile trail across Head of the Bay Road to the beach on Buttermilk Bay. The wider Red Brook Trail Network is a partnership of the Wareham Land Trust, the Onset Water District and The Trustees. You park in the Lyman Reserve lot, just past the point where Red Brook crosses into Plymouth from Wareham.
Changes like these show up in how a home is described and valued. If you own in Redbrook and want to know how the land along your edge of the community fits into what your home is worth, the Selling South of Boston team can walk you through it with a free home valuation.
