<html><head></head><body><div class="ydpc1b7afayahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div><div><a href="http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/local/article_73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="">http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/local/article_73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172.html</a><span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: 42px;"><br></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: 42px;">Illegal grow sites await cleanup</span><br></div></div><div><div class="ydp47eb05ccasset-masthead" style="font-family: Lato; margin: 20px 0px 40px; position: relative; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 14px;"><div class="ydp47eb05ccmeta" style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 100px;"><ul class="ydp47eb05cclist-inline" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; list-style: none;"><li style="display: inline-block; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><span itemprop="author" class="ydp47eb05cctnt-byline">By Sally Morris The Trinity Journal</span></li> <li style="display: inline-block; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;">May 8, 2019</li> <li class="ydp47eb05cchidden-print" style="display: inline-block; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><a href="http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/local/article_73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172.html#comments" class="ydp47eb05cccm" title="0 comments" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> <span class="ydp47eb05cccount">0</span></a></li></ul></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccshare-container ydp47eb05ccheadline-right ydp47eb05ccpull-right ydp47eb05cchidden-xs ydp47eb05cchidden-sm" data-subscription-required-remove="" style="float: right !important;"><ul class="ydp47eb05ccsocial-share-links ydp47eb05cchidden-print ydp47eb05cclist-unstyled ydp47eb05ccstacked ydp47eb05ccicon" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; 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width: 1px; min-height: 1px;">Save</span></a></li></ul><form method="post" data-uuid="73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172" class="ydp47eb05ccsave-list-73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172-form ydp47eb05ccsave-asset-to-list" action="http://www.trinityjournal.com/users/admin/list/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></form></div><div id="ydp47eb05cctncms-region-article_body_top" class="ydp47eb05cctncms-region ydp47eb05cchidden-print"></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccasset-content ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-premium"><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-preview"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">One of several topics discussed during the Trinity Collaborative’s April meeting in Weaverville was the status of cleanup and restoration efforts to reclaim trespass marijuana grow sites on national forest lands often hampered by the presence of toxins considered too lethal for human contact without hazmat gear.</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-preview"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">In a report from the Collaborative’s standing cannabis committee, member Susan Bower of Hayfork cited the Integral Ecology Research Center based in Blue Lake as “our best resource on what’s going on with the trespass grows, and in Trinity County they are focused on 2,000 especially egregious sites, all on public land, and that’s not even all. Those are just the most egregious.”</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">She said Trinity County Sheriff Tim Saxon met with the cannabis committee by invitation, but his focus is primarily enforcement against the most egregious violations of cannabis laws on private land.</p></div><div id="ydp47eb05cctncms-region-article_instory_top" class="ydp47eb05cctncms-region ydp47eb05cchidden-print"></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">“One teaspoon of these biocides kills a mountain lion. We are dealing with very big stuff,” Bower said, asking the larger group for suggestions “on how we can be more effective and successful.”</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">Six Rivers National Forest District Ranger at Mad River Dan Dill said the Forest Service has law enforcement staff shifting focus “into that time of year,” the marijuana growing season, but he noted many restoration activities at illegal grow sites have been shut down because of the amount of neurotoxins present from the chemicals and pesticides used by illegal growers to protect their crops.</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">To protect its workers, the Forest Service has mandated medical testing of sites before they are cleared for human entry, “and that’s a huge hurdle to us being more proactive and to our law enforcement taking action, so they focus on catching the bad guys,” Dill said. As for cleanup efforts, “that is a huge medical risk and a nationwide issue,” he said.</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">“So even to go take out the plants, you better be dressed up (in hazmat suits) while all those herbicides and pesticides are draining into our watersheds,” said Collaborative member Berry Stewart from Junction City, formerly a Trinity County supervisor representing District 4. He added that if more state funding “is coming down for enforcement, we need to be on top of it.”</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">Dill said the number 2,000 just reflects the high priority sites requiring remediation, adding “that’s only about 10 percent of what’s out there.”</p></div><div id="ydp47eb05cctncms-region-article_instory_middle" class="ydp47eb05cctncms-region ydp47eb05cchidden-print"></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">Another Collaborative member, Trinity County Sup. Judy Morris, said “This sounds like the same conversation we had five or six years ago when there was no money for enforcement. However, now we hear Governor Newsom is redirecting resources and our sheriff is fully engaged. There are efforts going on to drum up resources to use ‘up this way’ I’m told, but law enforcement is not letting out of lot of information right now for obvious reasons.”</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">The IERC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to research and conservation of wildlife and their ecosystems, has been researching the effects of illegal cannabis cultivation on the environment of Northern California watersheds since 2010, joining in partnerships with the Forest Service, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and others to fund clean-up and restoration activities on hundreds of illegal grow sites in the region.</p></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccsubscriber-only"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 16px; line-height: 27px;">Reports on findings and the removal of hundreds of tons of human trash, fertilizers, pesticides and infrastructure including miles of irrigation pipe from public lands are all documented on the IERC website at <a href="http://www.iercecology.org/" style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.iercecology.org</a>.</p></div><div id="ydp47eb05cctncms-region-article_instory_bottom" class="ydp47eb05cctncms-region ydp47eb05cchidden-print"></div><div id="ydp47eb05cctncms-region-article_bottom_content" class="ydp47eb05cctncms-region ydp47eb05cchidden-print"></div></div><div class="ydp47eb05ccshare-container ydp47eb05cccontent-below" data-subscription-required-remove="" style="margin: 20px 0px;"><ul class="ydp47eb05ccsocial-share-links ydp47eb05cchidden-print ydp47eb05cclist-inline ydp47eb05ccicon" style="margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; list-style: none; text-align: initial;"><li class="ydp47eb05ccsocial-share-link ydp47eb05ccfb" style="display: inline-block; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: auto;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trinityjournal.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Farticle_73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share" class="ydp47eb05cctnt-share-link ydp47eb05ccfb" title="Share on Facebook" data-toggle="new-window" data-new-window-width="500" data-new-window-height="300" data-track="{network:Facebook,socialAction:post,url:/news/local/article_73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172.html}" data-tncms-track-event="{app:editorial,metric:social_share,uuid:73e0ea3c-712d-11e9-87e7-1fa9c6e58172}" style="background-color: transparent; color: inherit; display: block; white-space: nowrap; margin-left: 1px; padding: 0px; border-left-width: 0px;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="ydp47eb05cctnt-stack" style="display: inline-block; position: relative; width: 2em; border-left-width: 0px; min-height: 2em;"></span></a></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class="ydp47eb05ccApple-interchange-newline" style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></div></div></body></html>