Preservationists are working to restore conserved land near Sakonnet Point that was excavated last week during filming of M Night Shyamalan’s “Remain,” in apparent violation of a conservation easement the land owners signed with the Sakonnet Preservation Association in late 2006.

Last week, while setting up and shooting a scene with film star Jake Gyllenhaal, film production crews excavated a swimming pool-size section of land on a coastal field at 46 Washington Road, just east of Lloyd’s Beach, up to a depth of up to two feet.

The property has been owned by ADK LLC out of Riverside, Ct., since 2006, and that year LLC officials signed a conservation easement with the Sakonnet Preservation Association to protect the land in perpetuity. Among other things, that easement prohibits “any ditching, draining, diking, filling, excavating, dredging, mining or drilling, removal of topsoil, sand, gravel, rock, minerals or other materials.”

On Friday, June 13, association director Abigail Brooks said she was contacted by an LLC member who told her that the family had contracted with the film’s production company to shoot on the land, but she said she was assured that family members were told that “it will cause no disruption to the field.”

At such a late date, “we had to scramble,” Brooks said, and early the next week she met with production company reps to go over the association’s concerns, the scope of work planned, and the terms of the easement.

Ultimately, she said, a contract was worked out and signed that allowed crews to put down tarps, cover them with topsoil and then “pretend” to excavate them, she said. “And if there as any minimal disruption to the topsoil, that we would invoice the company for damages.”

“So we had this contract worked out,” she said. Then just days before the final filming was to be done, “we found out (that) they weren’t going to put down the tarps. They were going to remove a larger topsoil section than we said was allowable.”

“The contract that we had signed wasn’t honored,” she said.

Ultimately, crews excavated the land last Friday, June 27 and shot the scene.

Though the excavated site was filled in after filming, the disturbed area is now topped in bare soil, with no sod. Brooks said the association’s aim is to restore it to as close to its natural state as possible, and volunteers on Monday began putting up fencing and planting fast-growing buckwheat to prevent erosion until the fall, when the weather cools enough to allow the planting of native grasses and pollinator friendly species. The association will send the production company the bill, Brooks said.

“We’re trying to make lemonade out of lemons,” she said. “It’s going to take some time.”

Brooks said that over the years the preservation association has dealt with other violations of conservation agreements, but most were minor: “This was unique — nothing to this extent.”