MIDDLEBORO - While many local residents will be watching fireworks on the Fourth, cranberry growers will be watching their bogs and hoping for a bumper crop this season.

"This is a critical time for growers, and we should know in a couple weeks what the crop potential

will be," said Jeffrey LaFleur, executive director of the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association. "We are in full bloom, and the bees are pollinating. The kind of weather we've had in the last week has been ideal."

But for Betty and Hal Brown of Middleboro, there may not be any berries on one of their bogs this year because of a recent vandalism incident.

"Someone intentionally flooded one of our bogs during bloom, which you don't want to happen," said Betty Brown. "If the water stays there long enough it will kill the bloom and won't set the fruit. We're hoping there's not too much damage, but we can't tell yet."

The Browns are not alone. As open space disappears in southeastern Massachusetts, cranberry bog owners find their property is often a popular target for vandals who destroy gates, rip up dike roads with dirt bikes or all-terrain vehicles and smash farm equipment.

"On top of years of falling prices and marketing orders, this comes under the topic of things you don't need if you're a cranberry grower," Betty said.

Over the past few years an oversupply of cranberries has caused prices to plummet and left many growers struggling to survive.

"It's like kicking us when we're down, with prices so low and the

Two weeks prior to their bog being flooded, a vandal also destroyed a flume, which is a wooden, water-control structure, on their bogs.

"They hacked it to pieces," Betty said. "Bogs used to be in isolated spots. We're not isolated anymore. It's an inevitable byproduct of urbanizing southeastern Massachusetts."

Over the past month, Peter D. Beaton, part-owner of Cranberry Growers Service of Wareham, had to deal with damage six times when vandals broke through gates onto his bogs. The company has about 700 acres of bogs in. Wareham, Middleboro, Rochester, Carver and Plymouth.

"It's to the point where I'm getting concerned," Beaton said. "They're not really doing a large amount of damage, but they're going in and having parties and leaving a mess behind."

Beaton said all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes have been on ongoing problem.

"They turn so fast they make holes in the road," Beaton said. "They do so much damage that we have to repair the road almost yearly."

John C. Decas, owner of Decas Cranberry Co. of Wareham, had three vandalism problems over the past few months.

"The third incident was kind of disturbing," Decas said. "They drove an excavator into a canal at Betty's Neck. After the third incident, I posted an $8,000 reward."

Decas said his biggest concern was the potential environmental impact.

"The canal connects to Cranberry Pond, which connects to Assawompset Pond," he said. "That was particularly disturbing, but we haven't had a recurrence since."

While vandalism has always been a problem, in recent years most cranberry bog owners have been forced to gate their property.

"Growers don't make land as accessible as they used to," Decas said. "Everyone's afraid of liability"