On Monday Yosemite National Park Rangers, in cooperation with the Mariposa County Sheriffs Office, the Army National Guard, and the California Department of Justice, raided 3 illegal marijuana growing sites inside park boundaries seizing an estimated $22 million in mature plants.
NPS: “The illegal cultivation sites bore the characteristics of a Mexican drug trafficking enterprise, including a sophisticated watering system, use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. The growing operation resulted in considerable natural resource destruction.
Yosemite National Park, along with other national parks in California, is taking an aggressive stand against foreign nationals growing marijuana on park lands.
‘This is an unacceptable activity that will not be tolerated in Yosemite National Park’, stated Acting Superintendent Kevin Cann. ‘We will work with the Justice Department on these cases to ensure that marijuana cultivation does not get established in Yosemite and that the park remains safe for visitors.’
‘For years we’ve been seeing these people make millions of dollars in profit, while they devastate the environment on private property and California’s majestic public lands. They destroy habitat, pollute streams with poisons and nitrogen fertilizers, kill wildlife, and pose a fire threat. The only thing missing is public outrage,’ concluded Shackelton.”
Photo by Ryan Bushby via Wikipedia.
Comments
3 responses to “Rangers Bust Marijuana Growers”
Greetings, gorgeous site – thank you for it! Re this topic, I’m personally VERY outraged that ecological destruction is done in Yosemite and elsewhere for growing pot. If you smoke it, be sure you know your sources. I’ve been deeply fortunate & grateful to love Yosemite since May 12, 1956 at age 3 1/2 and like other feel very protective. This is a problem elsewhere as well… Meanwhile, thanks again and I hope to share some photos some time.
Marijuana is natural .. its a plant. How can you say that cultivating a plant destroys the environment? Really, you’re just falling into the traps of the “War on Drugs” and its sad that you want to waste money trying to stop people from growing plants instead of stopping people from making meth labs or raping little girls. Come on …
Thanks for the comment Rachel. I was born and raised on a farm along the Tuolumne where people were always trying to grow marijuana and I can honestly say, if you haven’t seen what a large operation does or the means they use to cultivate their plants it’s hard to comprehend. These aren’t your neighbor growing a plant in his closet, these are hardcore growers maximizing profit.
They leave plastic jugs full of chemical fertilizers in piles. Most have the lids off and the chemicals are making a stew in puddles on the ground. They use pesticides that are so dangerous we quit using them in the 80’s. They dig trenches and divert water. They’d break off sprinkler heads and run hoses to their plants from our fields not to mention the piles of garbage they’d leave. Old matresses they slept on, papers, wrappers, cans, cases and cases of beer cans. All of this for someone else to clean up.