public lands

The abuse of public lands by illegal marijuana growers is a story that has been making headlines throughout the West this summer. In July, the New York Times hosteda GreenWire piece on the destruction of forests by drug cartels in the Sierras, and just last week InvestigateWest reportedthat the Denver Post had revealed a massive growing operation in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Now this week, the Wenatchee World writesthat marijuana growers in Washington are tearing up protected forests and leaving huge environmental footprints. Writes K.C. Mehaffey:

On the one site alone, the Forest Service spent $12,906.22 to clean up the area, where streams had been rerouted, slopes were terraced and fertilizers, pesticides and trash were left.

According to the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, nearly 80 percent of seized crops have been found on federal, state or public lands.

The number of raids and of seized plants have placed this year in the record books, reported Jesse McKinley of the New York Times in July. The article also finds that destruction left behind by the polluting cartels is not the only concern of the Forest Service. Some of this year's most dangerous forest fires have been connected to marijuana grower's forest activities.

[caption id="attachment_3240" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="We're talking about set-ups like this... although a lot smaller. That's the point. Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy"][/caption]

Quick -- before it goes behind the pay wall -- check out this intriguing Wall Street Journal story on how plans to combat climate change could mean tearing up the wilderness.

The WSJ's Jim Carlton points out that across the country, and particularly in the West, are streams where power providers would like to install small hydroelectric dams. From a climate-change standpoint, this is great: Carbon-free power! Enough to serve millions of homes! And often, no threat of NIMBYs, says the piece, datelined in Sultan, Wash., just up the road from InvestigateWest World Headquarters:

A big public utility is on the  cusp of building a hydroelectric-power plant on a picture-perfect stream in the Pacific Northwest, but the plan has yet to draw the usual opposition.

That is in part because approved project, which involves building a dam on a tributary called Youngs Creek, is so small and remote that is has attracted little notice.

However, Carlton points out, the cumulative impact of actually building the thousands of these plants envisioned by power producers could have a substantial impact in the form of crisscrossing the backcountry with roads needed to build and maintain the dams.

The numbers cited by Carlton here in Washington state are instructive:

According to the U.S.

More people are taking their off-highway vehicles onto private lands and until recently land managers appear to have been ignoring the potential harm to natural resources. Susan Montoya Bryan of the Associated Press reports that tight budgets have hampered response to the issue by the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management. The issue was the subject of a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report.