28-Year-Old Ukiah Man Held on Suspicion of Murder, Investigation Remains Ongoing A shooting at a large-scale marijuana growing operation near Kneeland Wednesday night left one man dead, another wounded and a third in custody on suspicion of murder. The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office reported that it responded to a report of a gunshot victim at the Cal Fire air station in Kneeland around 9 a.m. Thursday morning, after a man reportedly walked to the air station bleeding from a bullet wound. [continues 845 words]
The county has fined the owner of the Southern Humboldt County property fouled by a major diesel spill $215,000 on top of the $200,000 it took to clean it up, and criminal or civil charges are reportedly being considered as well. Exercising its administrative enforcement authority, the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Service's Environmental Health Division directed Albert Tordjman -- a chef now apparently living in Thailand -- to correct the numerous violations stemming from an alleged pot grow. About 1,000 gallons of red dye diesel spilled from a tank on the property, into the soil, with some reaching Hacker Creek, a tributary of Salmon Creek outside Miranda. [continues 455 words]
Robert Sutherland and some friends were bushwhacking through federal land on Red Mountain earlier this month when they stumbled on piles of pesticide containers at the headwaters of a creek. Some of them were punctured, and Sutherland wondered if the chemicals may have been released into the stream. The group contacted the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which sent out a team to clean up the site on School Section Creek southeast of Piercy in northern Mendocino county. It's a scene ever more common on public land in the West. Industrial-scale marijuana growing operations often bring in armed illegal immigrants with orders to shoot. After the marijuana is harvested, the detritus -- including toxic chemicals -- is left behind. [continues 502 words]
The cost of a pound of marijuana on the street may not reflect the steep cost to the land where it was grown and to people living nearby. With the ongoing trend of moving big marijuana grows indoors, drug enforcement agents are frequently uncovering serious environmental contamination problems. Mostly, the pollution is from diesel generators used to power energy-hogging sodium lights and ventilation equipment needed to grow high potency marijuana indoors. A below-standard diesel storage tank, and improper disposal of motor oil, can lead to soil and groundwater pollution that can cost thousands of dollars to clean up -- and in some circumstances is impossible to remedy at all. [continues 1682 words]
