Mendocino Sheriff’s Office Serves Warrant at Marijuana Grow on Yokayo Tribe Land

This is a press release from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. The information has not been proven in a court of law and any individuals described should be presumed innocent until proven guilty:Mendocino marijuana

In recent weeks, both the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the Mendocino County Code Enforcement Office, who handles complaints about cannabis cultivation, have received multiple complaints from community members and tribal members about a marijuana cultivation site on the Yokayo Rancheria.

The Yokayo Tribe owns the land, however it is not federally recognized land, therefore it is still subject to county and state regulations related to marijuana cultivation and county municipal codes.

In late September 2018, members of the County of Mendocino Marijuana Enforcement Team conducted an overflight of the location and observed two plastic greenhouses and over 50 outdoor marijuana plants being grown in the ground.

While conducting background information on the location, Carmen Christy was identified as living at the location and investigators learned that whomever was responsible for the marijuana cultivation might be using water diverted from the Tribe’s general well which is designated as household water and not for commercial agriculture.

On 10-04-2018 at about 8:30 AM, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, Mendocino County Code Enforcement Officers and an Environmental Scientist from the State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife served a search warrant at the location.

At the location, Carmen Christy and a relative were found to be living in the residence and the rear of the residence was completely fenced off containing a commercial marijuana cultivation operation.

Rudolfo Prudente and Jorge Luis Arredondo Navarro were found to be living inside the fenced grow area in tents.

While investigating on scene, 233 growing marijuana plants were eradicated and approximately 100 pounds of dried marijuana was located.

Additionally, the Environmental Scientist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife determined that trash and debris from past marijuana grows, to include soil and other garbage were discarded near an active streambed, which could cause runoff to go into the Russian River watershed, causing great environmental damage.

No persons were arrested. The case will be followed up on and submitted to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office to review for criminal charges.

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Ice
Guest
Ice
5 years ago

Lovely.

$$$
Guest
$$$
5 years ago
Reply to  Ice

Mendocino county, still busting small timers.
It should be interesting when they cant balance their budget with weed mlney

Y Knot?
Guest
Y Knot?
5 years ago

Back to the land for certain…

People probably couldn’t take baths because the plants were watered.

I’ll be glad when Marlboro takes over the entire industry and this nonsense is for the history books.

Addiction is a terrible thing.

?
Guest
?
5 years ago
Reply to  Y Knot?

Who went back to the land? The Native Americans? On Rez Land?

Sharpen your pencil
Guest
Sharpen your pencil
5 years ago
Reply to  Y Knot?

Thanks, I needed a good laugh!

Antix
Guest
Antix
5 years ago
Reply to  Y Knot?

Wow Y, ignorance is shining bright in you!

Big Bang
Guest
5 years ago

Wait a minute, you mean to tell me the herbal “medicine” savior has led to another f@#$%ked up aspect of our once great nation?
Shocked, I tell you, shocked! When will the inhabitants of northern California stop putting up with the criminal lawlessness bullshit behavior that is the sole destruction of our land, ecology, families, fish, forests, watersheds, economy, and abundance?
When the last salmon is beached, the last tree has fallen, and the last drop of water has fallen to fucking weed will we realize that we have shot ourselves right in the foot. And that my friends, will be the day we can never turn back. Long live the Mighty Eel…

Emily
Guest
Emily
5 years ago
Reply to  Big Bang

Come on.. dramatic much? Marijuana cultivation (233 plants) the ‘sole destruction of our land’?
How about overpopulation? Have you looked at the creeks and rivers in places like Santa Cruz, San Raphael, Santa Rosa?
Despite our little weed economy up here we are still the most pristine and ecologically healthy place in California. Don’t be such a chicken little!

Wish you'd all disappear
Guest
Wish you'd all disappear
5 years ago
Reply to  Emily

It was a lot more “pristine and ecologically healthy” before the horrendous overgrowth of pot. It was also a lot less populated with so many unhealthy people. Pot growers can not take credit for the relatively clean natural world here. It was better before they came, despite the decrying of logging, and they have been steadily working on dragging it down to Southern California levels ever since.

There was a time when clouds of butterfies was a common magical experience of childhood. When watching salmon swim upstream was normal. As was wandering over land owned by timber companies or ranchers without fear. Despite logging and ranching that had been in place for a century. All gone as those who haven’t sold off large parcels trying to keep trespassers off because of the damage they do. Butterflies have become almost solitary. The place where salmon swim upstream few.

Now even the very air has been polluted by pot legalization. How can people smoke so much pot that the air stinks of it morning, noon and night every day? From hundreds of feet away, assaulting the nose even when driving a house you can’t see. Both metaphorically and really, pot stinks. But pot users seem to think that’s grand.

?
Guest
?
5 years ago

You make claims with no science to back it up? Do you have proof that cannabis growers destroy butterflies?
I bet the Land was really nice before the industrial revolution.
Now its 2018
Sorry it will never be the way you remembered it, whether or not cannabis is grown around here or not.

Wish you'd all disappear
Guest
Wish you'd all disappear
5 years ago
Reply to  ?

Read more carefully about what claims were made. Not what you read into it.

?
Guest
?
5 years ago

Read more carefully but not what I read?
Your anti pot propaganda is starting to make alot of sense
Theres a really good movie called Reefer madness you should check out

Wish you'd all disappear
Guest
Wish you'd all disappear
5 years ago
Reply to  ?

Not what you read into. Haters of sobiety filter out all the ugliness they create in their pursuit of unreality. They see themselves as free and honest but what it means is drug euphoric and greedy. Pot very rarely makes anyone “mad” but it universally makes them oblivious, fuzzy headed and hysterically defensive.

If pot growers want to take credit for preserving a “pristine” ecology, there better be the wildlife, clean waters and gentle use to support the assertion. What is seen though is graded, round up nuked patches in tree cleared areas that divert the smallest trickles of water, with hundred foot long plastic edifices called grow tunnels. Where does all that plastic go at the end of it’s short life span? Plastic sheeting, pastic piping, plastic pots, plastic, plastic, plastic.

Where does wildlife go after the trickle that was their lifeline and native plants that fed them gets taken. All for making untaxed, unregulated, large profits out of self indulgence. Not food, clothing, shelter or other necessities but chemical unreality.

?
Guest
?
5 years ago

The internet is a drug too. I think it’s getting to your head,
Have you ever been to Napa or Salinas?
Go check it out, miles of greenhouses and irrigation to make anything in the Emerald triangle look small time

?
Guest
?
5 years ago

Also time for me to drop some science on you.
Logging cut down all the large trees that created shade and canopy. Now those large trees are gone, there are more smaller trees sucking up more water. Not as much tall canopy to slow down evaporation
Also logging companies are using poison in the wilderness to kill tan oaks
The impacts of logging will be felt on north coast for decades to come

?
Guest
?
5 years ago

Funny you talk about smell too, Remember the Eureka pulp mill? That really stunk.
Also a Superfund site
A direct impact of logging

Wish you'd all disappear
Guest
Wish you'd all disappear
5 years ago

Bad logging practices in the past doesn’t make growers one whit better. If the best you can offer as “science” (being that you didn’t refer to any, just opinions derived from the internet you so despise) is that earlier people did bad things, that is a pretty sad commentary. On many levels.

Unless you provide a study of the increased water needs of a coastal Doug fir versus a coastal redwood, it sounds like nonsense to be used as a grower’s rationalization. Coastal redwoods are dependant more on fog drip as they have a shallow root system where coastal Doug firs can grow deeper roots and can survive in more fogless areas if needed.

Wish you'd all disappear.
Guest
Wish you'd all disappear.
5 years ago

You just keep refighting decades over battles to avoid the one going on under your nose. Hello! I agree the pulp mill stunk until the scrubbers went in. But that does not decrease the stink of pot one molecule.

?
Guest
?
5 years ago

Sometimes I wonder if people like you are paid by a large corporation to spread misinformation about cannabis farmers.
It worked in the 2016 election why not here

Emily
Guest
Emily
5 years ago

You really sound like a commenter that goes by another name ..hmm

Emily
Guest
Emily
5 years ago

Well everyone’s got their opinion. If you ask me, I’d say, be careful what you wish for. The real ugly is people.. that’s what’s destroying California. That’s what’s bound to really ruin this place too. When you run out the rural industries, owners subdivide and people come in. It has happened with logging, now it’s happening with growers.
Give me logging, or growing, over subdivisions in the hills any day.

Guest
Guest
Guest
5 years ago
Reply to  Emily

Humboldt County subdivisions are the small acreage pot grows that line the roads and follow ridges all over. The only thing holding them somewhat in check is that growing on really steep land is costly and hard work.

LostCoastEMT
Guest
LostCoastEMT
5 years ago
Reply to  Big Bang

Your right Big Bang. …… back to logging and fishing (fuking dope growers killing the trees n fish!)

That sauce
Guest
That sauce
5 years ago

Pics or I’m calling bs on the “great environmental damage”

Wtf
Guest
Wtf
5 years ago

The have scientists that are saying growing cannabis is bad for the environment, it produces more oxygen than any other crop. Other countries use it to clean soil, funny that people believe what ever these people say and never do there own research.

LostCoastEMT
Guest
LostCoastEMT
5 years ago
Reply to  Wtf

I’ve done my research and have come up with this….

On the way to economic failure
Guest
On the way to economic failure
5 years ago

Agreed mostly propaganda brainwash lies,its all about ripping off the people now.the state and countys have gotten on to the scent of $$$$$ with there fees and taxes,like sharks to blood and now the PEOPLE and there rights come last.the real crime !!!!!! It’s time to vote out everyone in office,its time for regime change.

Wish you'd all disappear
Guest
Wish you'd all disappear
5 years ago

Government has not “just gotten” into fees and taxes. They have been eating people up for decades. Pot growers just didn’t pay them previously, while generally supporting spending of what they never expected to pay for themselves.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.t0V4sqN8qhFPaUfAQaoERwHaFo&w=191&h=160&c=7&o=5&dpr=2&pid=1.7

at a loss
Guest
at a loss
5 years ago

What do you think non growers have been subjected to for years. Now that growers have to pay for operating permits and real taxes. The rules should be changed to allow them to continue their previous ways. WTF

Frida
Guest
Frida
5 years ago

Big Bang nailed it. Maybe they were saving to build another casino lol

Dan F
Guest
Dan F
5 years ago

200 + plants was likely some one’s personal stash & amp; certainly NOT a “Big Grow” by ANY stretch of imagination!!! Get real MCSO!!! Hardly worth the time & resources it took to “take them down”!!! F’ing ridiculous!!!!

Realist
Guest
Realist
5 years ago

100 lbs , 233 plants what a JOKE!

3spooky5me
Guest
3spooky5me
5 years ago

What a waste of time and money.

lobsterclaw
Guest
lobsterclaw
5 years ago

233 plants? Are you effing kidding?

I’d like to see a number of how much that operation cost in tax-payer money: the fuel, equipment, time, etc, just to bust a small family grow on tribal land.

It’s sad that this is a real headline, and not something from The Onion.

guest
Guest
guest
5 years ago
Reply to  lobsterclaw

So if a thief knocks you down and takes your cell phone, the police should ignore it because it’s more in police costs than the value of the phone?

Farce
Guest
Farce
5 years ago

Long Live the Mighty Eel! That’s no Russian River- That’s the Eel River in the Russian drainage!

Big Bang
Guest
5 years ago

200 plant personal stash? BUUWAAHAHAHAHAAAAA! Dude, 200 plant persy? You smoke alot of weed dude. Wait, what? Dude…I forgot what what I was saying…Dude…Dude?

Franky Lee
Guest
5 years ago

“Soil and other garbage near an active stream bed could cause runoff” what about hcso new tactic of tractoring gardens into piles of soil and other garbage. Did environmental scientists in Humboldt determine this practice to be environmentally friendly?

. npw
Guest
. npw
5 years ago

Bullshit buckskin some people are fucked from gov