Sequoia National Park is home to the world’s largest trees and iconic birds including peregrine falcons and bald eagles. But in its backcountry, illegal marijuana grows are wreaking havoc on this biodiverse haven by diverting creeks, poisoning soil with pesticides and dumping thousands of pounds of waste.
On Thursday, the National Park Service announced a key win in its decades-long battle against these toxic farms — the removal of nearly 2,400 marijuana plants and around 2,000 pounds of trash from a 13-acre illegal grow site.
NPS law enforcement rangers initially found and raided the cultivation site last year but were unable to immediately move forward with rehabilitation due to the presence of several hazardous chemicals including methamidophos, an insecticide banned in the United States since 2009.
Methamidophos is extremely toxic to birds, fish and bees and can cause devastating ecosystem impacts if runoff enters waterways or seeps into groundwater. Exposure to the chemical can also cause humans to experience respiratory distress, muscle weakness and convulsions.
NPS rangers and special agents from the Bureau of Land Management worked together to remove the massive amounts of plants and waste by hand and with slings attached to helicopters to airlift them out.
An evaluation of the grow site indicated alarming levels of environmental degradation, according to the NPS.
The farm sliced terraces into the hillside, clearing significant amounts of natural vegetation in the process. They laid two miles of illegal trails and developed campsites and kitchens in a federally protected wilderness area.
When rangers raided the farm, they discovered evidence of poaching activity and recovered a semi-automatic pistol.
Crews at the farm had also diverted the natural flow of water from a nearby creek and used it to irrigate the very thirsty marijuana plants. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, a single plant uses 6 to 8 gallons of water a day that would otherwise support wildlife and vegetation.
Agricultural runoff from illegal marijuana farms is often tainted with pesticides and can pose a health hazard to communities living in the Central Valley.
According to the NPS, “well-organized drug-trafficking organizations” have been using both Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks for large-scale marijuana production for two decades.
The parks collectively span some than 1,353 square miles — an area larger than Rhode Island. Although they attract around 2 million visitors a year, they also contain vast expanses of largely untraveled wilderness where it is easy to hide these illegal grows.
Nevertheless, the NPS continues to work to root out marijuana farms and has eradicated nearly 300,000 plants with a value of almost $850 million from both parks over the last 20 years.
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