Pubdate: Fri, 31 Aug 2007
Source: Eureka Reporter, The (CA)
Copyright: 2007 The Eureka Reporter
Contact:  http://www.eurekareporter.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3289
Author: Steve Spain, The Eureka Reporter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?208 (Environmental Issues)

FOREST SERVICE WARNS OF MARIJUANA GROW SITES

September in Humboldt County means some of the best weather for 
outdoor recreation all year. It's also harvest season, and according 
to the U.S. Forest Service, back-country campers and hunters need to 
be wary of stumbling into large-scale marijuana gardens.

The trend is evident. With 134,000 plants seized in one location near 
Dinsmore this month, huge gardens that authorities attribute to 
international drug trafficking organizations are out there.

Special Agent Ron Pugh with the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement 
and Investigations Division said the first indicator of an illegal 
grow, aside from the plants, is black plastic irrigation pipe. Other 
warning signs are piles of trash miles from the trail head, and tents 
or trailers outside established campsites, especially if attempts 
have been made to camouflage them.

Pugh advises people who may stumble onto any one of these to 
immediately leave the area and contact law enforcement.

A special agent with the Forest Service who preferred not to be 
identified said, "These guys are in it for the long haul. They've got 
tons of supplies and they're camping on site." But he said the most 
common indicator of a large-scale operation, aside from the number of 
plants, is loaded weapons.

Pugh said some of these weapons are used for poaching game, but many 
of the guns he's found in his years of service are not hunting 
rifles. While raiding gardens, he's come across sawed-off shotguns, 
pistols and even military-style assault rifles.

These large-scale grows are operated by highly sophisticated drug 
trafficking organizations, Pugh said. They move often, he said, use 
cell phones or two-way radios, and operate across state and 
international borders.

The historic focus of law enforcement has been geared toward 
eradication, Pugh said. The tides turned Thursday when Rep. Davin 
Nunes (R-Visalia) and U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary 
Mark Rey unveiled a program designed to aggressively pursue these 
organizations.

In most garden raids, Pugh said, suspects get away, warned by 
helicopter noise or lookouts watching the roads. When they are 
arrested, Pugh said, most often they're not the ones in charge.

"They're the little guys," Pugh said, "some guy who was hired in an 
alley behind a Mexican restaurant who doesn't even know who he's working for."

Pugh said that can make these cases difficult to investigate. You may 
catch someone and he might want to cooperate, Pugh said, but he's 
unlikely to be able to point higher up the chain.

The workers are often picked up in urban areas and then dropped in 
the middle of nowhere, told to tend the garden and promised large 
sums of money if they're successful -- if they're caught, they're on 
their own, he said.

A document prepared by the Forest Service said the presence of drug 
trafficking organizations in Humboldt County has greatly increased 
this summer. The Forest Service states that as eradication efforts 
increased in Southern California, the organizations moved north to 
the relatively unsettled wilderness.

Proof of Mexican nationals operating such gardens came Monday when 
USFS personnel and Trinity County Sheriff's deputies arrested Ramon 
Orozco-Rivera. Officers found Orozco-Rivera, an alleged undocumented 
alien, with 5,165 plants, a shotgun and two loaded pistols in the Six 
Rivers National Forest near Willow Creek.

Pugh differentiates between the massive operations and what he calls 
a "Bubba garden" -- or a homegrown patch planted by locals.

The larger grows have groups of people camping on location for 
months, Pugh said. "They leave piles of garbage and do irreparable 
damage to the environment."

Pugh said he's seen a litany of environmental violations from 
clear-cuts and stream diversions to toxic dumps of chemical 
fertilizers and human waste.

Bob Sise, longtime professor of forestry at Humboldt State 
University, has covered hundreds of acres of local forests in his 
tenure. He's taken groups of forestry students into the woods at 
least once a week since the early '70s. On four occasions, he said, 
he stumbled into a marijuana garden with students in tow.

The first time he didn't even know that he had come upon something 
unusual. The bus driver had to tell him. He said he eventually 
learned to scope out the trip ahead of time to avoid embarrassment.

In all his years in the woods, Sise said he never felt endangered, 
but he acknowledged that times seem to be changing. He's heard from 
former students working for lumber companies that the larger gardens 
are becoming the rule rather than the exception.

"Everyone knows at least one story," Sise said, and he's collected 
quite a few. He said the bus driver who clued him in years ago later 
became a surveyor. He told Sise about being held at gunpoint once 
after stumbling into a garden.

"They didn't hurt him. But they kept him there while they got their 
stuff out of there and then they let him go."

The federal plan unveiled Thursday focuses on dismantling the 
infrastructure of drug trafficking organizations through 
investigative efforts. The plan calls for doubling the number of 
federal agents as well as establishing a dedicated special 
investigations group.

Better coordination between state and federal agencies is another 
goal, along with a change in strategy employing night-time patrols 
and increased intelligence capabilities.

"This is the Forest Service's No. 1 priority," Pugh said. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake