Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 27, 2012 - 08:38am PT
Pot farms wreaking havoc on Northern California environment
Burgeoning marijuana growing operations are sucking millions of gallons of water from coho salmon lifelines and taking other environmental tolls, scientists say.
Wildlife technician Aaron Pole surveys a forest trashed by growers. Carbofuran, an insecticide lethal to humans in small doses, is found regularly at large-scale pot farms. Also flowing into the watershed are rodenticides, fungicides, diesel fuel and othe
Credit: (Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times / November 15, 2012)
By Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times
December 23, 2012
EUREKA, Calif. — State scientists, grappling with an explosion of marijuana growing on the North Coast, recently studied aerial imagery of a small tributary of the Eel River, spawning grounds for endangered coho salmon and other threatened fish.
In the remote, 37-square-mile patch of forest, they counted 281 outdoor pot farms and 286 greenhouses, containing an estimated 20,000 plants — mostly fed by water diverted from creeks or a fork of the Eel. The scientists determined the farms were siphoning roughly 18 million gallons from the watershed every year, largely at the time when the salmon most need it.
"That is just one small watershed," said Scott Bauer, the state scientist in charge of the coho recovery on the North Coast for the Department of Fish and Game. "You extrapolate that for all the other tributaries, just of the Eel, and you get a lot of marijuana sucking up a lot of water.… This threatens species we are spending millions of dollars to recover."
The marijuana boom that came with the sudden rise of medical cannabis in California has wreaked havoc on the fragile habitats of the North Coast and other parts of California. With little or no oversight, farmers have illegally mowed down timber, graded mountaintops flat for sprawling greenhouses, dispersed poisons and pesticides, drained streams and polluted watersheds.
Because marijuana is unregulated in California and illegal under federal law, most growers still operate in the shadows, and scientists have little hard data on their collective effect. But they are getting ever more ugly snapshots.
A study led by researchers at UC Davis found that a rare forest carnivore called a fisher was being poisoned in Humboldt County and near Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada.
The team concluded in its July report that the weasel-like animals were probably eating rodenticides that marijuana growers employ to keep animals from gnawing on their plants, or they were preying on smaller rodents that had consumed the deadly bait. Forty-six of 58 fisher carcasses the team analyzed had rat poison in their systems.
Mark Higley, a wildlife biologist on the Hoopa Indian Reservation in eastern Humboldt who worked on the study, is incredulous over the poisons that growers are bringing in.
"Carbofuran," he said. "It seems like they're using that to kill bears and things like that that raid their camps. So they mix it up with tuna or sardine, and the bears eat that and die."
The insecticide is lethal to humans in small doses, requires a special permit from the EPA and is banned in other countries. Authorities are now regularly finding it at large-scale operations in some of California's most sensitive ecosystems.
It is just one in a litany of pollutants seeping into the watershed from pot farms: fertilizers, soil amendments, miticides, rodenticides, fungicides, plant hormones, diesel fuel, human waste.
Scientists suspect that nutrient runoff from excess potting soil and fertilizers, combined with lower-than-normal river flow due to diversions, has caused a rash of toxic blue-green algae blooms in the North Coast rivers over the last decade.
The cyanobacteria outbreaks threaten public health for swimmers and kill aquatic invertebrates that salmon and steelhead trout eat. Now, officials warn residents in late summer and fall to stay out of certain stretches of water and keep their dogs out. Eleven dogs have died from ingesting the floating algae since 2001.
The effects are disheartening to many locals because healthier salmon runs were signaling that the rivers were gradually improving from the damage caused by more than a century of logging.
"Now with these water diversions, we're potentially slamming the door on salmon recovery," said Scott Greacen, director of Friends of the Eel River.
In June, Bauer and other agency scientists accompanied game wardens as they executed six search warrants on growers illegally sucking water from tributaries of the Trinity River. At one, he came upon a group of 20-somethings with Michigan license plates on their vehicles, camping next to 400 plants. He followed an irrigation line up to a creek, where the growers had dug a pond and lined it with plastic.
"I started talking to this guy, and he says he used to be an Earth First! tree-sitter, saving the trees," Bauer said. "I told him everything he was doing here negates everything he did as an environmentalist."
The man was a small-timer in this new gold rush. As marijuana floods the market and prices drop, many farmers are cultivating ever bigger crops to make a profit. They now cut huge clearings for industrial-scale greenhouses. With no permits or provisions for runoff, the operations dump tons of silt into the streams during the rainy season.
Scanning Google Earth in his office recently, Bauer came upon a "mega grow" that did not exist the year before — a 4-acre bald spot in the forest with 42 greenhouses, each 100 feet long.
Figuring a single greenhouse that size would hold 80 plants, and each plant uses about 5 gallons of water a day, he estimated the operation would consume 2 million gallons of water in the dry season and unleash a torrent of sediment in the wet season.
"There has been an explosion of this in the last two years," he said. "We can't keep up with it."
Every grow has its own unique footprint. Some farmers on private land avoid pesticides and poisons, get their water legally, keep their crops small and try to minimize their runoff. Urban indoor growers might not pollute a river, but they guzzle energy. A study in the journal Energy Policy calculated that indoor marijuana cultivation could be responsible for 9% of California's household electricity use. Other producers, like the Mexican drug trafficking groups who set up giant grows on public lands right next to mountain streams, spread toxins far and wide and steal enough water to run oscillating sprinkler systems.
But it's not just the big criminal groups skirting the rules. Tony LaBanca, senior environmental scientist at Fish and Game in Eureka, said less than 1% of marijuana growers get the permits required to take water from a creek, and those who do usually do it after an enforcement action.
Responsible growers could easily get permits, with no questions asked about what type of plant they're watering, LaBanca said. They just need to be set up to take their water in the wet season and store it in tanks and bladders.
Fish and Game wants to step up enforcement, but the staff is overwhelmed, he said. The agency has 12 scientists and 15 game wardens in the entire four counties on the North Coast, covering thousands of mountainous square miles.
Until the last few years, dealing with marijuana cultivation was usually a minor issue. Now, LaBanca said, it is "triage."
On a recent day, Higley, the Hoopa wildlife biologist, took a reporter and photographer to some of the damage he finds in the most remote mountains, where bears, fishers, martens, rare salamanders and spotted owls live in cloud-mist forests. With his colleague Aaron Pole at the wheel, Higley headed north up the Bigfoot Highway and then up a dirt logging road 13 miles into the snow-peaked Trinities.
They were going to a grow that the sheriff had raided by helicopter in August. Deputies cut down 26,600 plants in eight interconnected clearings along Mill Creek, which flows into the Trinity River.
They parked the truck and started threading down precipitous slopes, through thick wet brush and forest. They stepped over bear scat, slippery roots and coastal giant salamanders.
Crossing a 2-foot-wide creek, they came across a black irrigation line. Vague footpaths emerged, empty Coors cans began glinting in the mud, more water pipes spidered out.
After another 40 minutes, they reached a clearing in the bottom of the canyon — a field of stumps, holes of dark potting soil and hacked-down stalks of marijuana. Dead gray brush and logs ringed the site. A few heavily pruned trees were left standing, to help mask the marijuana grove from the air.
Deputies had severed the irrigation lines during the August raid, but when Higley returned in September to study the environmental impact, some of the line had been reconnected to sprinklers and plants had re-sprouted. He saw a wet bar of soap on an upturned bucket and realized workers were hiding nearby.
On this return visit, the site was empty, and he started picking through the rubbish. "That's d-CON rat poison right there, 16 trays."
At a dump pile next to the creek, he found propane tanks, more rat poison, cans of El Pato tomato sauce, and empty bags of Grow More fertilizer, instant noodles and tortillas.
A lot of the trash had been removed during the sheriff's eradication — dozens of empty bags accounting for 2,700 pounds of fertilizer and boxes for 10 pounds of d-CON (enough to kill 21 spotted owls and up to 28 fishers), as well as two poached deer carcasses and the remains of a state-protected ringtailed cat.
"It wouldn't matter if they were growing tomatoes, corn and squash," he said. "It's trespassing, it's illegal and it borders on terrorism to the environment."
The local sheriffs are sh!t scared - I say turn the 82nd Airborne loose on 'em
Local shefiffs ain't "scared", they just know where the money that makes their little burgs function comes from.
Legalize it and all those covert grows go away. Much easier to plant some flat acres in the central valley than sneaking around the forest. MJ prohibition is one of the most idiotic, ineffective things we do.
If it weren't for the risk of losing their homes, I'm guessing most stoners would much rather grow their own.
Thank god the government protects us from that evil plant... and allows easy access to semiautomatic weapons so we can protect ourselves fro the zombie apocalypse. USA USA USA
This is the same reason the Carson area and highway 50 corridor now have helo flights daily, and nightly. I cleaned up trash of that nature last year at a local crag where they dumped. The economic times have also pushed more into this line of operations.
The affects are that the focus is now back on POT growing,,due to for the most, those that come into Cali from elsewhere. Much like Nevada- the only saving grace for us being a SHORT grow season compared to lower elevations of Cali.
These new growers are indeed giving a bad name to those that have operated with no issues for decades. Its horrific to see the enviromental damage done by what is supposed to be a healing natural herb- and oxy -moronic situation no doubt.
mainly that the loosening of mj law is driving the mom-and-pops growers out of business, and they are the ones who's pot money supports the sheriff, schools, fire dept. etc.
Make it legal and RJ Reynold's et al will be growing in the central valley and the Northern Coast will suffer mightily.
vestigators found 30,000 top-grade cannabis plants ranging in height from 2 feet to 6 feet. Stacks of propane tanks, melted irrigation tubing, empty fertilizer canisters, mounds of trash, a torched cooking stove and a semiautomatic rifle were also found at the Los Padres National Forest location, the sheriff and other agents said.
U.S. Forest Service fire investigators believe a propane-fed camp stove sparked the fire Aug. 8.
"This is the trend," Russ Arthur, a special agent for the U.S. Forest Service, said at a Santa Barbara news conference. "I've been involved in hundreds of arrests and all of the suspects have been Mexican nationals."
Drug rings south of the border send workers to plant in densely forested areas of the U.S. in early spring. The workers care for the plants for four to five months, camping out until it is time to harvest, agents said.
California's state and national forests are favored locations because of the good weather and soil.
The remote pot farm where the La Brea fire started is in a steep, overgrown canyon more than a mile from the nearest road, investigators said.
Growers terraced the plants up a mountainside, diverting a nearby stream to provide drip irrigation to the plants, they said.
The fire burned away from the farm and it appeared that the growers stayed for a while until firefighters drew close. They fled and are believed to still be in the forest, attempting to leave on foot, Sheriff's Lt. Sonny Legault said.
Authorities cautioned rural residents not to approach people leaving the forest because they could be armed.
It's been a record year of pot seizures for the state and federal agents who work with the Santa Barbara County narcotics unit each summer to eradicate illicit farms. So far they have pulled 225,058 plants with an estimated street value of $675 million.
Many of the illegal farms were not far from where the fire started. In late July, agents pulled 113,000 plants from one site, a record for the multi-agency team.
Legault said the increase in seizures is not a result of more law enforcement manpower. He said pot growers have become more sophisticated, planting multiple sites with bigger farms.
Brown agreed, saying it's virtually impossible to get rid of all the marijuana grown in the state's forests.
He suspects that there are many more undetected pot farms.
"The reality is we could have an army out there and not be able to cover all of that ground," the sheriff said.
After a 10-day battle, firefighters on Tuesday were close to completing containment lines around the La Brea fire. Firefighters were still dousing hot spots and making aerial attacks, officials said.
Ads by Google
That from 09.. We now have HS flights of helos through out the general carson -carson valley- and hgwy 50 corridors over these activities. I remember vividly getting beat up on here for posting about this last year when i found sacks of plantation garbage and knew the very minute i found it - who had dumped that trash. But i was labeled "racist" which simply had nothing to do with it. I made the comments that if you invite a mass of illegals from a third world country, you WILL get the very most undesirable aspects too, namely Cartels. Its really hard to give drug dealers a bad name, but cartels do exactly that.
Wow - a libertarian's/ right wingers wet dream!
Unfettered capitalism!
Give the men their freedoms!!
Get some wall street and corporate types in there and take it to the next level brah!
F*#k samon! And water...and that stupid forest..
Bunch of enviro- wackos
I have never used marihuana, but I voted for legalization. The same with other drugs. The war with drugs will not end until there is no incentive in selling them. I don't like those choices, but there is no other way.
Legalize it and all those covert grows go away. Much easier to plant some flat acres in the central valley than sneaking around the forest. MJ prohibition is one of the most idiotic, ineffective things we do.
I think it's doubly ironic that when well-intentioned environmentalists succeeded in creating a huge environmental preserve in Castle Rock State Park along the headwaters of the San Lorenzo River, they also made the same area into an ideal location for commercial marijuana cultivation. Hence, while keeping climbers out of that area, they in effect made it into a dumping ground for all the debris and environmental pollutants associated with growing pot on a grand scale. Now, State Park Rangers are too scared to patrol that area because of all the pot watchers armed with AR-15s. The so-called nature preserve has in effect become a lawless free-fire war zone. The nature preserve concept would work of course if everyone in our society were eco-freaks and nature nazis living in upscale Monte Sereno and Los Gatos. Unfortunately in our current upstairs/downstairs society, there are also a class of people known as "criminals" who don't give a rat's ass about endangered salamanders and frogs.
In the case of this clean-up, they are picking up potential targets--bottles and cans, while (maybe) presenting themselves as targets for the local growers, maybe. It's a shame the f*#kers think pot is so worth the risk they'd shoot someone's kids for it. But they would and they will.
Are there instances of kids getting blasted by pot farmers? It seems likely.
As some of you may know, I'm very active with a trail maintenance group....but we also have a division that works on restoring pot farms, after the weed has been removed by LEO's.
We take out all the stuff that has been taken into the backcountry, usually in huge cargo nets under helicopters. For a typical grow site, there are miles of irrigation tubing, and literally TONS of trash.
I am frequently astonished by the volume of stuff that has been dragged in by hand to locations that you need to be a mountain goat to access.
At times, we have needed to wear full Hazmat suits to safely operate. A lot of chemicals.
I believe we've cleaned up over 500 sites in the last 8 years.
These grows exist because someone sees it as a viable way to make money.
Since the product in question is illegal, legalization would theoretically go towards diminishing these illegal grows.
I'm not entirely convinced, however, that full legalization and regulation will, in fact, eliminate these grows. As long as there is a monetary benefit to the grow - then it will happen.
I think of marijuana along the same lines as tomatoes. People grow them in home & community gardens but also purchase the fruit from stores.
I feel that in order to stop these illegal grows, the drug must be made legal but it must also be made cheap.
If there's little money in growing it.......it will become less of a commodity.
Malaysian legislation provides for a mandatory death penalty for convicted drug traffickers. Individuals arrested in possession of 15 grams (1/2 ounce) of heroin or 200 grams (seven ounces) of marijuana are presumed by law to be trafficking in drugs.--Wiki
The near analogy for illegal grow-ops seems to be tobacco. A few people grow and cure their own, most just buy it. Somewhat different history and culture for those who grow marijuana, but I suspect that if there's reasonable regulation as to quality and production, over time most will be grown on farms, and most will just buy the stuff at the store.
Ken M, we need some people like you to go down below the Underworld area in Castle Rock SP and cart back up all the growing materials and irrigation conduit left down there by the growers beneath the Green Monster formation. The stuff has been left down there for at least 5 years and, as far as I know, no one has done anything about it so far. Correct me if I'm wrong I hope.
"Ken M, we need some people like you to go down below the Underworld area in Castle Rock SP and cart back up all the growing materials and irrigation conduit left down there by the growers beneath the Green Monster formation. "
Hey, why do "SOME PEOPLE" need to clean up this mess?
Why not YOU (Bruce Morris) be the organizer. Why not SUPERTOPEANS (specifically those who most likely would use Castle Rock/Green Monster) be the organizers?
Reminds me of the old story entitled "Whose Job Is It" and it's about somebody, nobody and everybody:
It goes like this:
"This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody,
Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and
Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would
do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody
got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody
thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody
wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when
Here is an interesting film called "Breaking the Taboo" which discusses the tragedy and failure of the war on drugs.
"Narrated by Morgan Freeman and Gael Garcia Bernal, this groundbreaking new documentary uncovers the UN sanctioned war on drugs, charting its origins and its devastating impact on countries like the USA, Colombia and Russia. Featuring prominent statesmen including Presidents Clinton and Carter, the film follows The Global Commission on Drug Policy on a mission to break the political taboo and expose the biggest failure of global policy in the last 50 years."
"Don't blame the pot growers. Put the blame where it really belongs - on the pot smokers."
this sounds rather simplistic and parroted talking point rather than well thought out to me - by the same logic : so car drivers are responsible for oil spills ?
The same LATimes also ran an article a few days later NOW stating that the Mexican Cartel Connection might be a wee bit overblown. The gist of the article suggests that what we really have in the woods are a bunch of out-of-work former Construction Framers and Field Workers looking to make a few bucks.
In other words - the big bad drug boogie man turns out to mostly be unemployed guys named Gonzalez from Fresno.
While the connection to major Mexican drug cartels may be mostly SWAT Team wet dreams, the fact remains that these dirtbags are trashing the woods in a big way. That has to stop.
Also to be asked is who is doing the buying of this garbage?
In state, a lot of this blood weed goes to the marginal low rent dispensaries in LA, with a fair amount also being picked up by so-called Brokers who ship it to the East Coast where yokels will buy anything that even looks like weed.
The reputable dispensaries generally buy from known growers with well-documented nurseries and methods of cultivation. When I was donating to a couple of local centers - I had to be inspected before acceptance as a grower/patient and always had my produce tested for contaminants prior to release for users.
This problem with guerrillas will not go away until the demand for their cheap crap stops. Either grow your own (expensive and not easy with today's finicky strains)or shop with a reputable collective.
I have tried it on more than one occasion, did inhale, but would not recommend smoking it to anyone. zBrownies should be evaluated, but here I have no recommendation.
omg dude i'm laughing my ass off - i need to get my sh#t out there, and soon...
we should stage a smoke out. Only organically grown certified safe and approved weed, burn the chem crap in a pile in front of us, sit on the steps of the state capitol and send a statement...order some food...
careful - there are Hundreds of these ;-) since I never have two arms and don't climb on film...
that's shortly before I left the ground without my harness doubled back, btw...this day is FOREVER BURNED IN MY MIND ;-) that could have been sooooo ugli...don't ever talk to riley while peeing dammit...
"Ken M, we need some people like you to go down below the Underworld area in Castle Rock SP and cart back up all the growing materials and irrigation conduit left down there by the growers beneath the Green Monster formation. "
Hey, why do "SOME PEOPLE" need to clean up this mess?
Why not YOU (Bruce Morris) be the organizer. Why not SUPERTOPEANS (specifically those who most likely would use Castle Rock/Green Monster) be the organizers?
Reminds me of the old story entitled "Whose Job Is It" and it's about somebody, nobody and everybody:
To be fair to Bruce, I thought the same at first. However, when I actually participated, it was an eye-opener.
First, this is on public land. You can't just go do this stuff. You are out in a growth site without permission, you might be mistaken in your intent.
Second, one needs training in how to handle some of this stuff. It's not my specialty (I tend to stick to trailwork these days), but one has to get a lot of training to do this stuff. Just to work around helicopters takes training and equipment.
There is a fair amount of specialized gear needed, such as the helicoptor nets. (oh, and helicoptors....and they don't come cheap) On the Sierra west side we often work with H-40, the CHP helo out of Fresno, the same one that does evac in Yos. They are highly skilled guys.
So it is not as simple to organize as it might seem.
That's the real problem, Ken M: It's illegal to go to the area in the first place & you'd need to receive permission from State Parks to actually visit the bottom land there on "official business". So far, from what I've heard, the Rangers haven't taken it out probably because it would take a heck of a lot of work carting all those oil drums and pieces of conduit up 1,400 ft of watershed gully choked with stinging nettles. The best way would be for helicopters to land and fly back out with the stuff hanging from below. I doubt there's a budget or the political will necessary to do just that. A nice little 2,800 ft round trip to carry back one piece of pipe or one oil drum just doesn't make a dent in the garbage pile. People are talking about doing it and that's a big step in the right direction. There was a shoot out in Castle Rock State Park below the waterfall once. A grower was killed or wounded I believe. Just wouldn't be a good idea to go snooping around down there without the Rangers in on the caper. Will ask around and see what the current status of the site is today. I've heard there's plastic pipe, metal oil drums and bags of fertilizer, but would need to inspect the site and see what needs to come back up.
The locals need to run those Mexicans out of town. Homegrown weed should end any profitability of Mexican Cartel run grow operations in Cali.
Seriously. Grow more weed, sustainably, force the price down by oversupply, and narc on every Mexican operation period. They couldn't care less about the environment.
As for the weapons, weed growers get their crops ripped off. Most of them wouldn't shoot to harm.
As marijuana becomes legal, the profit will go out of it. The cartels won't make any money smuggling in weed. This will help empty our prisons of non violent offenders.
I don't even smoke pot, but giving a dime to the Mexican Cartels is like passing the hat for Satan.
this sounds rather simplistic and parroted talking point rather than well thought out to me - by the same logic : so car drivers are responsible for oil spills ?
Interesting article in the Sacramento Bee over the holiday about pot grows here in California - quoting a guy in charge of a federal task forced based in Bakersfield?
There is no proof at all, none, that cartels have anything at all to do with grows.
Zero.
He said they've tried for a decade to even FIND a connection, much less prove one, nada.
He said these grows are crimes of opportunities. The workers are usually immigrant or illegal workers who don't even know who they work for - $100 a day cash to tend the crops.
The grow in the article was being run by a couple of guys in Bakersfield, no connection to any cartel.
Yesterday on KQED radio was an interesting show. As the price goes down, long time growers in Humboldt/Mendo area are planting more to keep revenue the same. They are taking so much water out of the rivers, it is affecting coho salmon negatively.
The point brought up in the Bee article DMT mentions is brought up as well.
Guests:
Anthony (Tony) Silvaggio, lecturer in the department of sociology at Humboldt State University, and an environmental sociologist with the newly formed Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research
Charley Custer, marijuana grower and co-founder of the Tea House Collective, a collective of Humboldt farmers who grow organic, sustainably farmed cannabis
Mike Jakubal, documentary filmmaker, environmental activist and 20-year resident of Humboldt County
Scott Bauer, staff environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Game
Scott Greacen, executive director of Friends of the Eel River, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring the Eel River and tributaries
Veteran Emerald Triangle pot growers see their way of life ending
Pioneering marijuana cultivators in the hills of Mendocino and Humboldt counties are being pushed to the margins by the legalization they long espoused.
By Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times
September 29, 2012, 5:03 p.m.
LAYTONVILLE, CALIF. — In the mountains of Mendocino County, a middle-aged couple stroll into the cool morning air to plant the year's crop. Andrew grabs a shovel and begins to dig up rich black garden beds while Anna waters the seedlings, beginning a hallowed annual ritual here in marijuana's Emerald Triangle.
In the past, planting day was a time of great expectations, maybe for a vacation in Hawaii or Mexico during the rainy months or a new motor home to make deliveries around the country.
But this year, Andrew and Anna are hoping only that their 50 or so marijuana plants will cover the bills. Since the mid-1990s, the price of outdoor-grown marijuana has plummeted from more than $5,000 a pound to less than $2,000, and even as low as $800.
Battered by competition from indoor cultivators around the state and industrial-size operations that have invaded the North Coast counties, many of the small-time pot farmers who created the Emerald Triangle fear that their way of life of the last 40 years is coming to an end.
PHOTOS: Up in smoke
Their once-quiet communities, with their back-to-nature ethos, are being overrun by outsiders carving massive farms out of the forest. Robberies are commonplace now, and the mountains reverberate with the sounds of chain saws and heavy equipment.
"Every night we hear helicopters now," Anna said. "It's people moving big greenhouses and generators into the mountains."
Andrew, 56, and Anna, 52, who agreed to be interviewed only if they would be identified by their middle names, live in a rambling house down a trail through tanoaks and Douglas firs. Their electricity comes from a windmill and solar panels, their water from a spring. They cook on a wood stove and use an outhouse with a composting toilet to conserve water for their crop.
Though they are not complete back-to-the-landers — they have a nice car, satellite TV and Internet access — they keep their gardens relatively small, tucked in the trees throughout their property.
Among their plants, they post their own medical marijuana cards so that if they're raided, it looks as though they're growing under the aegis of state law. But because dispensaries generally prefer the more potent weed grown indoors, they still sell mostly to the black market, where mom-and-pop growers now struggle to compete.
"These big commercial growers have really ruined our business," Anna said.
Until recently, life in the hills of Mendocino and Humboldt counties had changed little in the decades since hippies from the Bay Area began homesteading here. The pioneers initially grew marijuana for themselves and to make a little money.
Then in the 1980s, cultivation of high-grade seedless marijuana opened the possibility for big money as it brought a higher premium. Many of the farmers cashed in. But many remained small and discreet to avoid attracting the attention of state and federal agents.
They raised their families where they cultivated. They drove beat-up Subarus and small Toyota pickups, pumped their water from wells and chopped their own firewood.
The mountain hamlets operated like breakaway states. Marijuana farmers paid for community centers, fire departments, road maintenance and elementary schools.
Even today, small cannabis-funded volunteer fire stations and primary schools are scattered throughout the ranges. And the local radio station, KMUD, announces the sheriff's deputies' movements as part of its public service mandate.
But the liberalization of marijuana laws in the last decade upended the status quo.
From Oakland to the Inland Empire, people began cultivating indoors on an unprecedented scale at the same time that growers from around the world flooded the North Coast because of its remoteness and deep-rooted counterculture.
Now, with the market glutted, people are simply planting ever-larger crops to make up for the drop in price.
Longtime residents complain that the newcomers cut down trees, grade hillsides, divert creeks to irrigate multi-thousand-plant crops, use heavy pesticides and rat poisons, and run giant, smog-belching diesel generators to illuminate indoor grows. They blaze around in Dodge monster trucks and Cadillac Escalades and don't contribute to upkeep of the roads or schools.
"They just don't care," said Kym Kemp, a teacher and blogger in the mountains of Sohum, as locals call southern Humboldt County. "They're not thinking, 'I want my kids to grow up here.'
"Now there are greenhouses the size of a football field that weren't even there last year," she added.
Kemp said she feels her region is being colonized and worries about the colorful, off-the-grid people that small cannabis patches long supported.
"So many people who live here are just different," she said. "They don't fit in regular society. They couldn't work 9-to-5 jobs. But they've gotten used to raising their kids on middle-class incomes. What are they going to do?"
Tom Evans, 61, a small-time grower in northern Mendocino, said the sense of peace and self-reliance he moved here for 30 years ago is disappearing so fast that he may leave for Mexico.
"It used to be a contest to see who could drive the oldest pickup truck," said Evans, a former Army helicopter mechanic who sports a woolly gray beard and tie-dyed shirt. "There's just been this huge influx of folks who have money on their mind, instead of love of the land. A lot more gun-toters. A lot more attack dogs."
Evans lives in a small rented home that generously could be called a fixer-upper. He said he doesn't have a bank account or credit card, and his Honda Passport has more than 300,000 miles. "It's 'make a living, not a killing,'" he said.
His friend, a bear of man who goes by the name Mr. Fuzzy, noted that it's not only outsiders causing problems.
"You know the weird part, these are our kids too," he said.
It's a recurring lament among longtime growers. Some of their own children are going for the large-scale grows, big money and fancy cars.
The larger irony is that the marijuana pioneers are being pushed to the margins by the legalization they long espoused.
"Ultimately we worry about Winston or Marlboro getting some land and doing their thing," said Lawrence Ringo, a 55-year-old grower and seed breeder deep in the wilds of Sohum. "We see it time after time in America — big corporations come in and take over."
Ringo saw the 2010 marijuana initiative, Proposition 19, as a ploy by Bay Area activists to dominate the market with giant warehouse grows in Oakland.
He suspects plenty of people will still want high-quality, organically grown cannabis but fears the big business interests will dictate how marijuana gets regulated. Ringo points out that Colorado, the one state that fully regulates marijuana, helped push most growing indoors and place cultivation under the control of large dispensaries.
"We're afraid of losing what we've been doing for 40 years," he said.
As competition drives prices down, even chamber of commerce types acknowledge that the North Coast economy is at risk. Pot kept things afloat as the logging and fishing industries declined. Restaurants, car dealerships, banks, hotels and dental clinics all depend on marijuana money.
"There's probably not one business that doesn't benefit," said Julie Fulkerson, who founded a home furnishings store and comes from a prominent third-generation Humboldt family.
Walk into the upscale Cecil's New Orleans Bistro in small-town Garberville and you'll find growers in dirty T-shirts unpeeling rolls of $20 bills to pay for martinis and $38 steaks. More soil supply and hydroponics shops line stretches of Highway 101 than gas stations, and trucks laden with bags of soil and fertilizer kick up dust as they make deliveries on the most isolated roads.
During harvest, hardware stores put out huge bins of Fiskars pruning scissors, the preferred tool for marijuana trimmers. Safeway stocks so many turkey bags that an outsider might wonder how such small locales could consume so many birds. The sealable, smell-proof bags are used for storing and transporting weed.
"I wouldn't survive … if it wasn't for growing," said Tom Ochner, 54, who runs a country store and rental cabins outside of Covelo — a business called the Black Butte River Ranch. "Owners realize this is what makes their business go."
Concerned about the economics of legalization, Humboldt banker Jennifer Budwig studied the amount of pot money entering the local economy.
Using an extremely high estimate that law enforcement seized 25% of the total amount of pot grown in Humboldt, she found that the crop generated at least $1 billion a year — of which $415 million was spent in the county. She said the actual figure could be several times higher.
Legalization "has the potential to be devastating," she said.
Some small growers, like Anna and Andrew, still hold out hope that they can beat back the deluge of industrial marijuana.
There's a market, they say, for sun-grown weed among discerning users who appreciate the nuances of regional variety.
A grower just down the road said he hoped to start promoting "Mendocino terroir."
"How can sun-grown not be better medicine?" Anna asked. "If you're sick, you want something that has chemicals in it? You can't grow indoor organically. Not to mention the fossil fuels it burns up."
But even if boutique weed has some potential, the couple still sense that their life in the mountains is changing for good. The next-door neighbor recently had a home-invasion robbery, and a young man down the road was shot in the face during a deal.
Andrew goes back to planting the new crop. He used to have the radio on all day — something to engage his mind during the tedious work.
Good one, Heyzeus, I was gonna post that back in Sept.
"There's just been this huge influx of folks who have money on their mind,
instead of love of the land. A lot more gun-toters. A lot more attack dogs."
The pot farmers took a sh#t on the last proposition to legalize marijuana in California because they were scared of competition and so they could continue shitting on the environment with no sanctions.
The inbred irresponsible hippy f*#ks growing this sh#t out on our land need to be shut down. Legalize it and shut down these incompetent hacks. Next time they try to blow smoke up your azz, don't fall for it.
I'd see a lot of my foothills friends stressing out, figuring out how to get a job if it happened. But, in the scheme of things, it seems that full legalization would do a solid for nature.
Jebus, I know 5 growers who were all for legalizing it. Had 99 plants, and a bitch ate one. They knew what was up and they were ready to move on from their little business venture. But yeah, they said the seedier elements... not really hippies, more like aspiring meth heads... up Eureka way were opposing it.
Locker, the problem with having to build extra electrical infrastructure is
that even solar isn't the 'green dream' many think it is.
Just ask the tortoises.
@ Ding: Why not. Those lights suck down the electricity. That's how they spot 'em, by elevated electric bills. We're talking multiple 1000 watt bulbs, man.
I hear ya Wes, I don't doubt there's some good people out there, and probably more rapacious types than your typical hippy doing the really bad deeds, I just don't agree with using our public lands with absolutely no oversight for your source of income. It's probably easy to justify leaving the waste out there, use excess fertilizers, pesticides, re-route natural water sources, clear cut, you name it, because it is all illegal to begin with.
The enterprise as it exists now encourages the smash and grab types. Do it big and nasty for a few seasons, earn a few mill and move on.
The problem with solar is we are still in the mindset of relying on huge corporations to make it feasible.
If all those soon to be out of work pot growers would take some initiative and get into solar retrofitting, it would go a LONG way.
No point in shading the tortoise habitat when you could shade building, parking lots, and highways in SoCal. No huge corporation is going to be able to pull that off, it takes too much agility and adaptability. They rely on the economy of scale to generate their billion dollar profits. But a few smart people with some skillz could easily knock out some solid solar panel installations with multiple benefits.
From the class I taught last semester... CA uses ~200,000 GWh of electricity a year.
1000W bulbs x 12hrs x 1 bulb/2 plants (?) = 6,000 Wh/plant
5,000,000 plants, plus whatever locker smokes = 30,000,000,000 Wh = 30 GWh for all the indoor plants in CA
Oh thee ARE those too.. BUT, in the area around here, it has been mexican nationals,,and those ties to Cartels are wht the gubbment did things like fast and furious to try and define. They havent been very successful.
edit: Ive know folks in N Cali, that have grown for years, retired and still growing on thier own lands, with quite clean operations.
and this from Hoobies article:
"This is the trend," Russ Arthur, a special agent for the U.S. Forest Service, said at a Santa Barbara news conference. "I've been involved in hundreds of arrests and all of the suspects have been Mexican nationals."
So we, as a society, are just letting it happen? Nope! "We" are directly contributing to it... "we" are part of the mindset... because "we" aren't investing several thousand in personal solar energy... "we" are selling those parents... "we" are wasting energy and pretending the only cost is what our bill says. You are part of "we" whether you like it or not.
If all those soon to be out of work pot growers would take some initiative and get into solar retrofitting, it would go a LONG way.
I know a few solar installers. Some of them are growers who took the initiative to further their knowledge.
I'll be specific. I have friends who own land in the foothills and are very much oriented to living a back to the earth lifestyle. All produce is grown in their prodigious garden, and either eaten or canned.
Their grow is 99 plants, with a card. Indoors and all organic.
They vehemently oppose legalization because it will decimate their income source.
They are good people and good friends, but their cries for continued medical use and no legalization seems disingenuous to me. They are just looking out for their bank accounts.
I don't understand why there can't be a replica of our current produce system. The general populace will get commercially grown bud, a'la Budweiser. Then, the bud snobs (me) will buy their stuff from local growers, a'la farmers markets and going to a local farmer for your produce. That's how I roll for whatever produce I don't grow in my own humble garden.
It's all taxed, from the big farmers to the local farmers market.
I don't see anything wrong with this model, but then, I live in a small town in NH full of rednecks and hippies. Both demographics are full of regular smokers.
Such raids have become commonplace in California, part of a costly, frustrating campaign to eradicate ever-bigger, more destructive marijuana farms and dismantle the shadowy groups that are creating them.
Pot cultivated on public lands surged in the last decade, a side effect of the medical cannabis boom. In 2001, several hundred thousand plants were seized in the state. By 2010, authorities pulled up a record 7.4 million plants, mostly on public land.
Law enforcement long called these grows on public land "cartel grows," and hoped to work from the busts in the forest up the drug hierarchy, maybe all the way to the Sinaloa Cartel or the Zetas.
But after years of raids and work with informants and wiretaps, agents realize the operations seemed to be run by independent groups of Mexican nationals, often using undocumented fieldworkers from their home regions.
Tommy Lanier, director of the National Marijuana Initiative, part of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said there was scant evidence that the cartels exerted much control over marijuana growing in the national forests.
"Based on our intelligence, which includes thousands of cellphone numbers and wiretaps, we haven't been able to connect anyone to a major cartel," he said.
Lanier said authorities have long mislabeled marijuana grown on public land as "cartel grows" because Mexican nationals are arrested in the majority of cases, and the narrative of fighting drug cartels helps them secure federal funding.
He doesn't rule out that some of the cash flowing south of the border makes its way to members of those groups. He just doesn't believe they are actively directing activities up here.
"We've had undercover agents at the highest level of these groups, breaking bread and drinking tequila," says Roy Giorgi, commander of the Mountain and Valley Marijuana Investigation Team, a multi-agency organization headquartered in Sacramento. "Even at their most comfortable, the leaders never said, 'Hey, we're working for the Zetas.' "
In Giorgi's jurisdiction, the majority of the people arrested or investigated are originally from the state of Michoacan, where marijuana growing and immigration to the U.S. are entrenched.
Man, reading the OP article more. If half of that's true, enjoy sucking down your unfiltered karmic retribution, brah. I guess it's easy for me, I got off the herb recently, but this is big time disgusting. Concerned pot heads need to start demanding more accountability.
Dingus wrote:
With legal pot, the central valley will tromp indoor grows back to the super specialists they once were.
Yeah buddy. The already cultivated Central Valley would become the weed basket of the world.
The central valley is already a failing agricultural system. No need to add to the water stress, over irrigation, and erosion by mass producing weed. Just make it like home brewing... you can grow your own and give away an ounce for Christmas... you just can't legally sell it.
The Klamath Basin has been getting trashed by one means or another since the white man first laid his eyes on it.
I just finished a book, River of Renewal: Myth & History In The Klamath Basin by Stephen Most. From gold mining (which I am guilty of), overfishing, hydroelectric dams and irrigation both the wildlife and people have suffered. The book was published in 2006 and ended on a positive note with people coming together to make changes to restore the natural balance of the area.
Cannabis growers weren't mentioned in the book, probably due to the smaller number of growers and their impact on the environment being hidden with their crops.
^ uh, cuz you help cut it from the plant, trim it up, and know they have a similar desire for quality products as you do? Same reason people prefer homegrown, vine ripened tomatoes over store bought choss shipped from Mexico.
If it were legal and regulated, each grow would be under environmental protection laws just like any other industry. It is against the law to dump these chemicals even if you are a goat farmer.
If it is regulated, and the grow sites are known, then it is pretty damn easy to construct a criminal case under local, state, and federal law. That is what my wife does for a living.
It is a simple thing to go for legalization. Just like Alcohol, which ruins more lives in a year than weed will in a lifetime.
First, our prisons are full of a small category of offenders: drugs, including weed, mental illness, which is now the defacto mental hospital of this day, and other non-violent crimes.
If you are caught with weed without a tax stamp on it, then that means it is from an illegal grow, such as Mexico, and you will get a massive fine. Enough to send you to the poor house.
If we can increase the domestic supply of Marijuana, then it will hurt the profits of the ungodly brutal Mexican Cartels.
All weed should come from a "born in the USA" card on it.
To finish this up, I was watching "Gangland" on TV the other night late and those gang members, even in prison, are lost causes for society. If any of them straighten their lives out, fine. If they get three strikes, we need to ship them to something like Devil's Island and stop wasting money paying for them.
One thing that seems to have been mentioned here but not given proper air time is that the considerable environmental damage of today is not going to magically cease if pot is legalized. In fact, if the legalization bill is something to the effect of big indoor grow-ops getting the green light, then what's to stop a Philip Morris or an RJ Reynolds (with Monsanto providing seeds) stepping in to dominate the industry? I doubt whether those companies could care less about the environment.
Growing pot indoors in CA makes no sense whatsoever given the amount of sun available; I've seen one energy equivalence estimate of 55 gallons of diesel fuel per pound grown indoors (I will admit that I can't verify the source other than to say that it was from an informational pamphlet). I suppose in a municipal grid (as opposed to giant diesel generators helicoptered into the woods) the electricity isn't all from such a filthy source, but still represents significant power usage in a place where the sun shines for free much of the year. Indoor obviously doesn't eliminate the environmental impact of water usage or chemical runoff, although it may concentrate the impact in less wild areas than do the asshats who grow on public land, be they cartel-related or other assorted criminals. Growing it sustainably and organically, outdoors, if more widely practiced, would be a great solution but it probably requires more effort and no one out for a quick buck is going to care enough to invest their time.
The industry obviously has to change and I'm pretty sure that the old guard of cottage industry growers will be disenfranchised regardless. With the market flooded it seems, unfortunately, the perfect time for large-scale state (or federal, eventually? yeesh) run operations to centralize the production and I really don't think this is a viable solution either (and many of those operations are indoor as well, which is even more wasteful). Would it be better to have everyone grow their own and dissolve the industry? I have no idea relative to the impact on power and water usage not to mention the use of fertilizer. Would there be fewer 10-ton stashes of garbage in sensitive forest and river lands? Maybe. Would it be better to have centralized production for the dispensaries and allow people to grow their own, like with ordinary produce?
I think someone said it upstream, but unfortunately (for those whose livelihoods depend on it) the only way to curtail some of the insanity in Northern CA is to remove the financial incentive somehow. I think it would probably be for the better, ultimately, but it might really screw everything up in that region. Tough call, but obviously something is going to change in the next decade, maybe sooner.
PS: I just read Base104's post a little more carefully and wholeheartedly agree, although I wish industry regulation were a little more reliable a tool and doubt that it would be a panacea in this case either.
One thing that seems to have been mentioned here but not given proper air time is that the considerable environmental damage of today is not going to magically cease if pot is legalized. In fact, if the legalization bill is something to the effect of big indoor grow-ops getting the green light, then what's to stop a Philip Morris or an RJ Reynolds (with Monsanto providing seeds) stepping in to dominate the industry? I doubt whether those companies could care less about the environment.
Oh, not true when they are regulated.
When you have a relative few larger operations, it is easy to monitor what they are doing. When you have a hundred thousand small operations located who knows where, it is nearly impossible.
When you create appropriate disincentives, you will have an impact.
For example, you wonder what would happen if confiscation of land were to happen, where environmental crimes occurred?
It should be considerably cheaper to cultivate marijuana on land that is reasonably flat, with access to transportation, water, power, and people/employees. The main economic reason that they grow in the foothills and mountains is to reduce the likelihood/expense of being arrested, raided, or robbed, hence the acceptance of the increased variable costs. Take those risks away, and most growing will happen in flatter places - just like real regulation of automatic, semi-automatic and assault weapons, it may take a few years to be noticeable, but it will be. Even though the land may cost a bit more.
Allow me to interject a little reality into this discussion on growing.
Outdoor - yes, the sun is "free" and the land is good and your weed will indeed grow big and full as Ma Nature intended. Unfortunately, what also delights in this paradise are bugs and thingies. Grow outdoors and your weed will ALWAYS be contaminated with insects, mold and fungi.
Two spotted and Black spotted mites from hell, springtails, Botrytis gray mold, Fusarium wilt, aphids, whiteflies - any number of things will absolutely infest any dense bud structure grown in the wild.
Not a big deal if your target buyers are 19 y/o frat boys - but if you are growing for true medical users with compromised immune systems - do you really want to infect them with this variety of potential pathogens?
There is a saying in the biz - "Dirt is Dirty".
Because of this is why I choose to grow indoors in a controlled environment under HID lights in a controlled Hydroponic environment.
I create and control my universe - I command the lights to shine or not, I feed with specific compounds tailored to the needs of the plant during each cycle of it's life. I give it the air it needs but only after filtering it to block spores and flying critters. I monitor and control the temperature for it's benefit. I use organic compounds such as rosemary oil and kelp extract to bolster it's immune system.
I harvest when it tells me to, trim by hand, dry in a humidity controlled room, cure in sterile glass jars and finally, have each run lab tested for the quality of it's inherent value as well as to confirm the absence of foreign materials and contaminants.
There is a difference in approaches to the creation of this product. On one hand, you can take the industrial path, on the other - you can be the whacky heirloom tomato guy at the Farmer's Market.
To equate it to the wine business - you can be a Gallo or you can be a Bien Nacido.
When you have a relative few larger operations, it is easy to monitor what they are doing. When you have a hundred thousand small operations located who knows where, it is nearly impossible.
When you create appropriate disincentives, you will have an impact.
For example, you wonder what would happen if confiscation of land were to happen, where environmental crimes occurred?
disincentives LOL thats funny..what a fine like BP got?
If you are monsanto you just have the laws changed to your liking.
The whole point of legalization should be to eliminate the massive amounts of money going to Mexico. That country is now bought and sold by drug cartels who cut off heads more often than Sarah Palin looks in a mirror.
That is why our tax dollars do down the drain with daily HS flight of helos these days. Always good to seem them circling while you on a route- looking at the guy in the door with the mounted 30 cal looking at you..
The Mexicans are still smuggling thousands of tons of weed into this country. Are they now growing the super quality stuff like the local growers are?
I looked into growing weed in Colorado once. There are so many weed outlets that the profit isn't that great. So I would say that Colorado grown weed is mainly home grown. It should be.
NORML has all of the weed laws by state on their website. Interesting reading. The biggie is when you go over 100 plants. Automatic long prison term.
For horticulture? You gotta be kidding me. If they have no violent record and plenty of good character witnesses, they should pay a fine and go on. Save prison cells for bad guys.
---An interesting point here is the lobby efforts of the private prison industry. All they want is filled cells. That is how they make money, and being corporations, have no conscience.
Love your bear poop stories - you are like the Huell Howser of the Central Valley - only not gay and not on PBS and man I mean this in a damn good way!
Let us know!