Attaquin Park on Mashpee-Wakeby Pond will close twice over the next eight months, once this fall and again next spring. Both closures follow a schedule set by a federal stormwater permit.
Attaquin closes on Monday, October 26, 2026, for stormwater work expected to take up to six weeks, depending on weather. The town says it will announce the exact reopening date. The same notice describes a second closure in late spring 2027 for final paving, finished before Memorial Day. Those two dates fit a pattern now visible at three Mashpee pond landings. Santuit's rebuild is substantially complete, the state ramp on Mashpee-Wakeby has reopened, and Attaquin is next.
A New Project Every Year, by Requirement
The rotation began as an obligation. At a December 8 Select Board meeting, Department of Public Works Director Catherine E. Laurent explained that the Attaquin work came from the town's stormwater asset management plan, which the board approved as part of Mashpee's stormwater permit from the US Environmental Protection Agency. The Mashpee Enterprise reported her description of how the permit works:
"Every year, we're required to identify a new project to improve stormwater in an area. We're currently under construction at the Santuit Pond boat ramp on Timberlane Drive. The project that was next in line was improvements in the parking lot at Attaquian Park."
Laurent said Attaquin was chosen because of the town's broader work in that watershed, including wastewater improvements in a large area around the pond. So Attaquin follows a landing the town has already finished, and the finished one shows what Attaquin may look like next summer.
Santuit Went First, and It Shows
The Santuit Town Landing on Timberlane Drive was the project Laurent mentioned as under construction at that December meeting. At the July 13 Select Board meeting, Scott Turner, a civil engineer associate at Fuss & O'Neill, called it "substantially complete," according to the Mashpee Enterprise. Only planting, site stabilization and a few punch-list items were left. The goal, Turner said, was to cut the phosphorus reaching Santuit Pond, much of which arrives in stormwater runoff.
Most of the work is drainage, and most of what a visitor notices is new. The landing now has:
- three stormwater basins and one stormwater wetland
- a porous-pavement parking area and a new access drive
- a new boat ramp with a turnaround, a boat launch and a dock
- a new picnic area
JW DuBois and Sons built it under a state Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grant. Work started in November and December, stopped for the winter, and resumed in mid-March. Select Board chairman John J. Cotton's reaction to the result was brief: "I can't believe that's the same Santuit Pond."
The landing's most personal feature is its new retaining wall. Campers in the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's Protect Our Homelands summer program added their handprints to a mural of local animals. Water Quality Coordinator Ashley Fisher said the mural also tells the story of the big trout and includes some Wampanoag language. The town had hoped to hold an August ribbon-cutting with the Tribe. The coverage reviewed for this piece did not confirm a date or whether the ceremony took place.
The landing is the first of two steps for Santuit. Fisher has said treatment of the pond's internal loading, such as an alum treatment, would improve Santuit Pond significantly. An earlier pond-committee update described an alum treatment, funded through the Tribe's state MVP grant, as planned for this fall. No treatment date had been reported. The town continues to monitor the pond with water-quality units deployed in it and through its ponds and lakes stewardship program.
The State Ramp Was Rebuilt the Same Winter
A second landing was rebuilt over the same months, on Mashpee-Wakeby Pond and under a separate partnership. The Association to Preserve Cape Cod, the Horsley Witten Group, the state Office of Fishing and Boating Access and the Town of Mashpee finished green stormwater infrastructure at the Mashpee-Wakeby State Boat Ramp in June 2026. The ramp reopened in time for peak summer use.
That project took longer to prepare than to build. Designs were drawn in 2022 and 2023, permitting was finished in 2024, and construction began in late 2025. The system handles runoff from 1.9 acres, 0.9 acres of which are the ramp's paved parking lot and driveway. Funding came from a state Coastal Zone Management grant, the boating-access office, Mashpee's Community Preservation Committee and private foundation support.
Santuit and the state ramp now set the standard. Both started construction in late 2025, worked into 2026 and were done or nearly done by summer. Santuit paused for the winter and resumed in mid-March. Both rely on stormwater basins or bioretention to handle runoff. Attaquin is next in line for the same treatment.
What Changes at Attaquin
Laurent described the work at Attaquin as "a complete reconstruction of the area." The parking lot will be raised and new stormwater infrastructure installed. Runoff will flow into a bioretention system, a landscaped depression that treats the water. From there it goes to infiltration trenches, which Laurent described as "little grids under the asphalt." In heavy storms, overflow will run to the area northwest of the lot.
Two changes will be obvious to regulars. The project adds two accessible ramps down to the beach, and parking drops from 44 spaces to 30. Before proposing the smaller lot, Laurent reviewed summer security-camera footage at 2 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. on about two dozen dates. The most vehicles parked at any one time was 26, four fewer than the new lot will hold.
The schedule has gotten shorter. In December, Laurent estimated two to three months of construction. The town's October 6 notice now says up to six weeks for the fall phase, with final paving moved to a separate closure next spring. In December, Laurent also said she thought the town could let people walk through the grassed area to the beach while there was no parking. The October notice describes the park as closed, so that notice is the guide for this fall.
Where the Water Is Open Between Now and December
| Site | Pond | Status as of mid-October 2026 | What's different |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attaquin Park | Mashpee-Wakeby | Closes October 26 for up to six weeks; second closure late spring 2027 | Raised lot, bioretention, two accessible beach ramps, 30 spaces instead of 44 |
| Mashpee-Wakeby State Boat Ramp | Mashpee-Wakeby | Reopened shortly after work finished in June 2026 | New green stormwater system serving 1.9 acres |
| Santuit Town Landing, Timberlane Drive | Santuit | Substantially complete as of July | New ramp, dock, picnic area, porous parking, Tribe camp mural |
| Johns Pond ramp, Hooppole Road | Johns | Public ramp; not part of the current rebuilds | No launch or parking fee |
On Mashpee-Wakeby, the state ramp is a separate site from Attaquin, and the closure notice covers only the park. Swimmers and picnickers have Johns Pond Park as an alternative. The town's recreation facilities chapter lists a sandy beach and swimming area there, along with picnic tables, grills, a fire pit, a volleyball court and swings. Beach sticker and fee rules depend on residency. The Johns Pond public boat ramp on Hooppole Road charges no launch or parking fee. Kayaks and canoes can also go in from the town beach in the pond's northwest corner, which requires a Mashpee beach sticker in summer.
Water conditions are less predictable than construction dates. A July 28 alert reported a potentially toxic cyanobacteria bloom in Santuit Pond. A pond-committee report put the Wakeby basin of Mashpee-Wakeby Pond under a "potential for concern" advisory at that time, while the Mashpee basin had none. The town updates its Beach Advisories page as conditions change, most recently on October 5. That page is the place to check before a paddle.
The Spring Date Matters
The late-spring 2027 paving closure is planned to finish before Memorial Day. If that schedule holds, Attaquin will be closed in the fall and in the spring but open for both summers. The permit Laurent described requires the town to identify a new stormwater project every year, so Attaquin will not be the last.
A home near Santuit, Johns or Mashpee-Wakeby comes with the landing down the road, and that landing is now on the town's improvement schedule. If you want to think through what the pond-landing work means for a property your family plans to keep for a long time, Paul Grover would be glad to talk it over. Start a confidential conversation.
