1,500 pounds of illegal marijuana plants before being destroyed/NPS
Editor's note: The following is an unedited release from the National Park Service.
Nearly 3,000 illegal marijuana plants were eradicated from Sequoia National Park in California last month. Law enforcement officers discovered a cultivation site in the Yucca Creek drainage west, which is in a designated wilderness area of Sequoia National Park, west of Generals Highway.
The 2,986 plants were removed on September 14 and had an estimated street value of $7.5 million. No arrests have been made and an investigation is ongoing.
“Illegal marijuana grows like this can wreak havoc on the environment,” explained Ned Kelleher, chief ranger for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. “Trash is left everywhere and herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals accumulate in the watershed. The cultivators poach native wildlife, clear-cut acres of forest, and create unauthorized trails.”
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks this year have seen a five-fold increase in illegal marijuana cultivation over the last five years. So far this year, 21,000 plants with an estimated value of $52 million have been eradicated. And since the early 2000s, when the trend of large scale cultivation operations first began in the parks, approximately 270,000 plants have been eradicated with an estimated street value of $911 million.
Large marijuana cultivation sites can have major impacts on the Central Valley. A single marijuana plant uses six to eight gallons of water a day, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. That deprives water that would otherwise serve communities downstream with drinking water and provides for irrigation of crops. Because a large number of pesticides are used in growing marijuana, the water that does run off from large cultivation sites can be tainted.
The September 2016 operation was completed with the assistance of the California Army National Guard’s Counterdrug Task Force and the United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California.
Comments
Build the Wall!
Having been involved in the investigation of these types of DTO grows on public lands in California a border wall would only make the situation worse. The large scale Mexican DTO trespass grows only became a major issue after 9/11 and the resulting increase in border security. When that happened the cartels realized it was easier to grow MJ in the US than try to smuggle it over the border. The climate in California makes it ideal for MJ growing and DTO grows will continue here even if Prop 64 legalizes its recreational use.
Sell it ust the money for the parks.
A previous resident of California (1971-78, 1995), I can assure everyone that pot was being grown in the state's national parks and national forests LONG before 9/11 and the so-called heightened border security that followed. Whole sections of the national forests in particular were being labeled "dangerous" even 25 years ago. If you stumbled on the growers, and they thought you a threat, well, you might just "disappear."
What makes it "easier" to grow marijuana on this side of the border? How about lax enforcement, starting with too few officers in the field? If you want to stop something, you have to be willing to stop it. If every time a "grow" got started it was discovered and rooted out, that would end the problem, would it not? Or do we want marijuana to become like moonshine, and turn the other way?
The point about moonshine is to skirt the law, since alcohol is everywhere a legal product. The point about marijuana is to defy the government, openly turning large portions of the public lands into lawless fiefdoms.
A border wall may not be the answer, but enforcement certainly is. Good luck with that, as they say, especially now that marijuana has been defined as "recreational," in other words, absolutely safe and benign. Just don't ask me where I bought it, or where my money went.
I think we should legalize marijuana as Colorado has done. There are rural areas in California, especially in the northwest counties where, fundamentally, it already is, de facto of course. A friend that owns a small farm in Humbolt County told me you run for office there you had better not interfere with the local marijuana farmers. The developing news is the big cartels are now competing with the locals, this causing problems. Tobacco, alcohol, drugs (legal or ortherwise), are a problem here in America and for that matter in many other nations. The war on drugs is simply not working, more enforcement is not going to change anything, it changed nothing during prohibition, just led to more corruption and a larger prison population. I have no answers, but my own opinion is education in the abuse of the above products is extremely important. Also funding for substance abuse centers, big time. Many citizens use alcohol, drugs etc. in moderate amounts, usually not a problem. Like planned parent hood, family planning (sex education), other programs, people need to know the consequences of the choices they make and be able to seek help when they realize they have problem. Out lawing the substance just makes it more desirable and more expensive.
I've read studies from Colorado that stated that the legalization there hasn't exactly curtailed the cartels from growing it in the national forest regions. Their market just is no longer strong in Colorado but bordering states.
The theory is if more states eventually legalize it, one would assume the black market would diminish. Sort of like after prohibition was lifted the black market for bottleggers collapsed as well. I definitely think this is a big threat, and it irritates me that portions of our wilderness and National Park areas are being illegally altered by these cartels. The trash, the pesticides, and all the altering of the land to create irrigation ditches is a definite threat against conserving lands for native species and wildlife. Granted, one must assume many of these grow sites don't exceed a few acres.. But just having toxins and pesticides flush into streams is enough harm.
I know that in the southeast, meth labs setup deep in National Forest areas are also a threat.
Alfred-I never said MJ wasn't being grown in parks and public lands in California prior to 9/11, I've been an LE park ranger for over 20 years. But in the early to mid 2000s the scale of the operations changed dramatically. Early in my career a big grow in my region, SF Bay Are, would have been a few hundred plants and the growers were locals. By 2005/06 it was thousands to tens of thousands plants being grown by those with connections to Mexican Drug Cartels (DTOs). As for the post 9/11 comment that came from an NPS special agent who worked on nothing but DTO grows on public lands.
Mrnranger, that is my experience also.