The Santuit River, also known as the Cotuit River, is a 2.3 miles (3.7 km) river on the border between Mashpee

Mashpee, Massachusetts

Mashpee is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 14,006 as of 2010.For geographic and demographic information on specific parts of the town of Mashpee, please see the articles on Mashpee Neck, Monomoscoy Island, New Seabury, Popponesset, Popponesset Island,...

 and Cotuit, Massachusetts

Cotuit, Massachusetts

Cotuit is a village on Cape Cod in the City of Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. Located on a peninsula on the south side of Barnstable about midway between Falmouth, Massachusetts and Hyannis, Massachusetts...

 on Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

.

The river flows southwards from the southern end of Santuit Pond into Popponesset Bay (also known as Shoestring Bay) on the south shore of Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

.

The river was a vigorous herring

Herring

Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...

/alewife

Alewife

The alewife is a species of herring. There are anadromous and landlocked forms. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or mooneye...

 run and has been reputed to hold sea-run brown trout

Brown trout

The brown trout and the sea trout are fish of the same species....

. It was alleged that overpumping by an adjacent golf course caused the river to run dry in the early 1990s but that charge was denied.