Annual environmentally unfriendly marijuana eradication under way

Half Moon Bay Review/Bob Franklin (Special), 8/22/13.  "Annual pot eradication effort get under way, Marijuana operations often leave toxic environment."

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....  As the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office prepares for its upcoming annual pot grow “eradication” — a countywide purge of whatever pot farms it locates — the effort includes cleaning out the environmentally harmful waste left behind.

Pot farms are located throughout the county and Peninsula on both private and public land. Farms of the latter sort can be particularly problematic because growers often set up sites in national forests for several months during the summer growing season, generating a great deal of garbage before abandoning camp. Last year, local authorities removed around 3,000 pounds of garbage from grow sites, according to San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force Cmdr. John Munsey."

....  "On the environmental side of it, it’s just a very toxic situation,” said Munsey in a phone interview. “(Growers) come and camp out for months, using gasoline fuel, pesticides, and accumulating garbage. When they leave, none of that comes out. They just leave it, and most of it drifts into waterways.  Read article.

Note:  Photograph from  Business Insider.

Posted by Kathy Meeh