Marijuana.com

Coolguy

Pot Cultivators Polluting Parks
David L. Beck | San Jose Mercury News | 08/13/2005

Fertilizer and Pesticides Flow into Streams

The farm that stretched across four ridge tops in the Santa Cruz Mountains contained perhaps a dozen gardens. Along with thousands of marijuana plants, state agents and sheriff's deputies found fertilizer, pesticide, spring-loaded rat traps, 6- by 8-foot water pits lined with plastic, 50-pound bags of topsoil, bags of rice and beans, and, of course, human waste.

The fabulous climate and wide open spaces that lure millions of visitors to California's wilderness every year are drawing marijuana growers, too. And authorities say Mexican drug cartels have carved out farms even in some of the Bay Area's most pristine parks.

Along with the potential danger to hikers, hunters and cops who run across a carefully guarded "grow," there is the "agricultural assault" the chemical-intensive farming is inflicting on the fragile ecosystems of California's back country.

"The violence and the potential for violence are certainly there," said Michael Johnson, commander of the state's coordinating agency for marijuana control. "The grows are larger, and the product is a more potent and more dangerous drug."

The raid on the well-tended farm in rural Santa Clara County near Mount Umunhum last week -- during which a state Fish and Game warden was shot in the legs and a worker at the farm was killed -- illustrated both the dangers and the sheer size of the operations officials are finding.

Changing Locations

It also illustrates the growers' tendency to shift locations when the heat is on. In 1999, San Benito County led the state in number of plants seized. In 2003 it was Tulare County, and last year Riverside County.

Now, perhaps, operations are moving into the South Bay. Last Friday's raid netted more than 22,000 plants, and it followed a raid in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County by a day. About a month ago, there was a raid at Castle Rock State Park.

In 1999, southern San Benito County yielded one of the largest single pot gardens ever found, with 48,185 plants. "I've got a plaque on my wall: 'Garden of the Year, Sept. 10, 1999,' " said San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill. Since then, the statewide total has grown from 241,164 plants seized to 621,315.

"It's incredible the amount of provisions and different types of equipment they will haul in for miles across very rough terrain," said Hill.

In the Big Basin raid, a sheriff's team found "a regular campsite -- food, clothing, sleeping bags, tables, camp stoves, personal items" as well as fertilizer, according to Bob Cooke, special agent in charge of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.

Officials warn that statistics and anecdotes may reflect only the tip of the iceberg.

"Part of our problem is that we don't know exactly how much marijuana is grown out there," said Johnson. "It seems to be increasing. But all we can base our statistics on is what we eradicate. . . . There has to be more."

Why has marijuana farming become such a growth industry? And why, increasingly, is it done in parks, national forests and other public lands?

"We've always known that smaller marijuana gardens were being grown, usually for personal use, on public lands throughout the country," said Alexandra Picavet, a ranger and spokeswoman for Sequoia National Park. "But since Sept. 11, 2001, when the borders became more secured, the problem has most certainly grown. We went from finding 5,000 plants in 2001 to 44,000 last year."

Tighter Border

The increased security may have made it cheaper for Mexican drug cartels to grow pot here than to ship it across the border. In 2004, 80 percent of the plants seized came from gardens believed to be run by Mexican professionals; those gardens yielded $2 billion worth of marijuana. That percentage has been fairly consistent since the state first began keeping those statistics in 2001.

Others cite federal and state laws that let authorities seize and sell private homes or land involved in the drug trade. But Morgan Taylor, an assistant district attorney in Santa Cruz County, said the forfeiture of anything other than cash in a drug case is rare.

There's a much more practical reason not to grow marijuana on your own land. "Why would you," said Taylor, "if all they have to do is go to the county records and find out who it belongs to?"

People tend to take a more relaxed attitude toward marijuana than toward other, "harder," drugs.

"They don't pay attention to the real problem, which is: It's wholesale agriculture going on in wilderness areas," Picavet said. "It would be equally offensive if asparagus was being grown, or corn," she said, calling it "agricultural assault."

How does it assault the land? Let her count the ways: "We've found evidence of thousands of pounds of fertilizer, miles of irrigation hose . . . herbicides, pesticides, Diazanon," a banned insecticide. "They've been damming up creeks. In some places they'll actually pour their fertilizers right into the creek that's been dammed up and irrigate straight from that."

Tale of Destruction

"There are miles of trails cut," Picavet went on, "acres of understory cut, manzanita trees damaged from their putting the gardens under the trees for camouflage. We've found weapons in every camp we've gone into, or evidence of weapons, such as bullets or shell casings. They're leaving behind literally tons of garbage, propane canisters, human waste, food that's attracting animals. They're poaching animals."

With drip irrigation systems and careful use of natural canopy, operations like the two broken up last week are harder to spot from the air, compared with "years ago, in the early '80s," when Cooke recalls easily being able to see marijuana "gardens" from the window of a 747.

Some officials have called the new breed of pot farms "sophisticated."

"I don't know about that," said Johnson, the state commander. "We're finding a whole lot more than we ever found before, so they must not be hiding them too good. They're doing the same old careless things they've always done. . . . They're more brazen and bold about it . . . because they've gotten away with it for so long."

Officials believe the people tending and guarding the plants -- almost invariably Mexicans, but "Mexican nationals, not Hispanic Americans," said Cooke -- are paid anywhere from $100 a week to a lump sum of $10,000 or more after the harvest, depending on their level of responsibility.

With pot going for $4,000 a pound and a mature plant yielding about a pound of buds, a garden like the one near Mount Umunhum is worth more than $80 million, which makes labor costs a tiny percentage of the equation.

Occasionally some workers go to jail. There were 35 arrests in 2003, 41 in 2004. Most of those are "lower-echelon" workers, said Hill. "It's more difficult to get to the shot-callers."

But, he added, "I don't care if the guy is just a bit player. I want him to go to jail. . . . If we can get him three to four years in federal prison, I love that."

__________________