Pot-farm raids can foul forest ecosystems

Officials have dismantled more than 30 marijuana farms growing in California's San Bernardino National Forest this year, but scientists say the effects on the forest's delicate ecosystem could last for years.Scientists who study forests say it can take years for an area formerly the site of a marijuana farm to return to its natural state, if it ever will.But law enforcement agents don't have the time or money to remove all the debris connected with marijuana farms. Helicopters often are used to haul the marijuana and other items out of the forest because these areas are not easily accessible by trails."We try to clean up as much as we possibly can when we do the eradication but helicopter time is incredibly expensive," said U.S. Forest Service special agent Denese Stokes. "There are always things that we cannot get out."Special agents are on track this year to bust more illegal marijuana growing operations in California than they did last year, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman John Heil.He said 1.2 million marijuana plants were pulled from federal forests in 2006 in California, 1.7 million plants in 2007 and 1.3 million so far this year. This year's haul came from more than 7,400 acres.In the San Bernardino forest alone, more than 200,000 marijuana plants were removed from 33 sites from August to mid-September, said John Miller, forest spokesman.Pulling evidence, such as the marijuana, and removing rodent-killing chemicals, fertilizers and any other dangerous chemicals left by the growers is the priority, agent Stokes said, but watering pipes, tents and associated garbage often are left behind.Growers use chemicals to kill animals because they might damage the marijuana, Stokes said.She said that once agents are through with all the clearing they can manage after the initial raid, the Forest Service makes no other efforts to clean up the remaining garbage.The San Bernardino National Forest is home to more than 150 protected animal and plant species, according to the forest service's Web site.Forest ecologist Malcolm North, a University of California, Davis professor who does research for the forest service, said areas stripped of natural vegetation become vulnerable to exotic plants that can take over and may not be hospitable to other plant and wildlife.Marijuana farms also cause damage by siphoning water from streams, said Taylor McKinnon, public lands program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization that studies and helps preserve natural areas."The West doesn't have any water to spare, particularly in these remote wildlands," McKinnon said.Scott, North and McKinnon said no one has studied extensively how marijuana farms damage the forest."Only in the last five or 10 years has it become widespread enough of a problem for it to warrant examination," North said.McKinnon and North said the long-term effects are unknown but could be significant."The cumulative impact of this happening across the West can add up," McKinnon said.U.S. Forest Service officials hope a nonprofit organization will help clean up these sites as volunteers from the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew have in Northern and Central California.Shane Krogen, executive director of the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew, and his volunteers remove tons of garbage, chemicals and irrigation lines left behind from marijuana-farm busts, but they can only get to a small number of sites.Finding other volunteer crews willing and able to do the work is difficult. Cleanup crews must be accompanied by law enforcement for their safety and must get legal clearance. None are working in the San Bernardino National Forest.Krogen said it was difficult for his crew to wade through the bureaucracy before they could start the cleanup missions.He said he believes it is crucial for volunteer teams to work these sites because policing agencies aren't doing it and estimates there are thousands of sites statewide that have not been cleaned up."There is just so much out there that it is beyond belief," Krogen said.(E-mail Jessica Logan at jlogan(at)PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)