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AMERICA'S WEED RUSH

U.S. Forest Service: Illegal marijuana growers pollute national forests
Enforcement 

U.S. Forest Service: Illegal marijuana growers pollute national forests

News21 Fellow
The Pacific Fisher is a medium-size mammal native to North America. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/via flickr)
The Pacific Fisher is a medium-size mammal native to North America. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/via flickr)

By Lauren Del Valle
@News21

PHOENIX – Drug-trafficking organizations harvest illegal marijuana grows in national forests across the country, and federal officials say they’re throwing off the ecosystem.

Since 2005, the National Forest Service law enforcement units have eradicated more than 6,000 grow operations in national forests, according to a 2014 agency memo. Illegal growing in California accounted for about 85 percent of that – namely, in Shasta-Trinity and Mendocino national forests in Northern California.

There are drug-trafficking organizations operating in 72 national forests in 21 states, according to the memo.

“Of course it’s a drug issue for us, but it’s more of a natural resource issue – protecting the national forests,” said Chris Boehm, assistant director of the National Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations Division. “Even if they were growing roses out there and practicing it the same way, we’d be doing the same thing.”

As illegal growers irrigate their harvests with natural water sources, the forest wildlife feels the hurt. For example, the number of Pacific Fishers is dwindling each year because they eat the rats killed by rodenticide – poison used to keep rodents away from plants. As there are only two known populations of the mink-like mammals left, they are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The fishers dwell in Northern California and Oregon.

National Forest Service officials anticipate they will confiscate about the same number of plants as last year, 655,000, over a  12 to 14 week period. The number of plants has been shrinking each year, as it was 3.5 million plants in 2010, Boehm said.

In California, the service’s CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) operation, eradicated about 250,000 so far in its 2015 season, which started the first week of July.

Boehm attributed the decrease in plant eradication in California to the ongoing drought and the growing supply of legal marijuana, which has lowered the demand on the black market.

Task force crews of about 30 people including law enforcement and other forest personnel hike deep into the forests to remove the plants after aerial reconnaissance spots them. The removal process results in an arrest about 40 percent of the time because the density of the forest often works to the advantage of the growers, Boehm said.

The teams sling load the bundled plants out of the area by helicopter and transport them to a secure location where workers typically burn the  cannabis plants. They use a natural solvent to help decompose the remains. Burning the plants on site is no longer the preferred method of elimination because of the high risk of forest fires.

These grow sites range from 2 to 20 acres and costs the growers about $35,000 per harvest. The payout on the product with a street value at about $2,500 per plant, however, outweighs the risks of federal prosecution, Boehm said.

“They don’t have to pay taxes. It’s all black market stuff,” Boehm said. “They can siphon off water from natural supplies that they don’t need to pay for, robbing the wildlife and the rest of the ecosystem of a scarce commodity. The total investment in a marijuana grow is so low compared to a greenhouse type of thing.”

Illegal grows affect less than 1 percent of national forests, according to Boehm, and hikers continue to enjoy the public lands. And even where the drug trafficking organizations grow, they may not be looking to confront innocent bystanders.

“Generally, their strategy is to sit there and hide – don’t let anyone know they’re there,” Boehm said. “If they were to take action, then law enforcement would be on it. And obviously, we’d be taking steps to go in there and make the area safe so it’s to their advantage not to be noticed.”

The National Forest Service asks visitors to report signs of illegal grows. Some signs include:

  • Hoses and black tubing that seem out of place.
  • The smell of marijuana that a hiker might confuse with that of a skunk.
  • Campsites miles away from designated camp grounds.
  • Clearings and trails not designated by National Forest Service signage.

 

Follow Lauren on Twitter @Lauren_delvalle. Come back Aug. 16 to see the full News21 report on “America’s Weed Rush.”