[UPDATE 4:30 p.m.] Humboldt County Sheriff Says Helicopter Flying Low in SoHum Is MET
“The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Marijuana Enforcement Team is conducting aerial inspections of watersheds that have experienced an extreme decrease in water related to illegal cannabis cultivation.” [Photo by Kym Kemp in Salmon Creek]
Today, Samantha Karges, spokesperson for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, affirmed that the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) was using the helicopter. She wrote in an email response to our inquiry, “The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Marijuana Enforcement Team is conducting aerial inspections of watersheds that have experienced an extreme decrease in water related to illegal cannabis cultivation.”
We asked for the studies that indicated why MET chose certain watersheds. We have not had a response yet. But we do know in the past that Salmon Creek and Redwood Creek in Southern Humboldt County have been identified as watersheds of concern. And, these are some of the watersheds experiencing heavy overflights the last few days.
UPDATE 4:30 p.m.: Samantha Karges, spokesperson for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office responded earlier that:
Various watersheds are being inspected throughout Southern Humboldt County. The inspections are part of an information gathering operation and joint investigation with the California Department Fish and Wildlife after the agency was alerted to the depletion of water in the watersheds. At this point we are collecting information and investigating the connection between the water depletion and illegal cannabis operations in those areas.
Earlier: Helicopter Overflights the Last Two Days Worry Southern Humboldt Community
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Kym, Good for you for asking for clarification and accountability.
If it was reported that logging was drying up the watersheds, the Sheriff’s office would do nothing. There’s plenty of scientific evidence about the damage of logging on the watersheds.
“You can’t get paid in the shade!”
maybe ya should thank your local logger for clearing your land so ya can grow dope!
Thank you
you need to go back to school…lol..logging reduces water use.cutting trees means fewer trees exist.less water is consumed by trees..wow nice try…
Although it certainly may have an effect, it isn’t illegal.
The county of Mendocino and Sonoma are diverting water directly from the Eel River. So much is probably lost to evaporation. Maybe go gather some data down there.
OMG – “worried” Are these permitted grows? If so what’s the big worry? Otherwise the rivers are going dry and the non-permitted (over blown) grows are ‘worried”?
Haha back in the day in the 1970’s and ’80’s we went and climbed a damn tree when the helicopters flew over or the cops showed up at our mom and pop grows. Now they get a sympathic nod because , ohh, they might get caught.
If some of those growers planted a bit less or left some of the water in the creeks maybe they would not have to ‘worry’ so much.
I know of one permitted (partner) grow that can’t be satisfied with their permitted farm that they are still blowing up some un-permtted green houses in their original neighborhoods their neighbors aren’t happy about. Do they care? Perhaps this is some just karma because of in inability to regulate themselves in a major drought season.
More like it’s just another excuse for the cops. Pot growers aren’t causing the drought, just like they didn’t cause the drought last time. And just like they didn’t cause the rain after the two years of drought. Fish and game is just trying to exert maximum control over riparian water rights. They don’t care if you pump a million gallons out of “their” creek as long as you pay them to do so. And cops love illegal weed, what would they do otherwise, get a job at the gas station?
That is where you are wrong. Legal farms can only take so much and the river has to be at a certain level.
And the 2.0 folks have to have rain catchment and storage not allowing diversion even with a forbearance.. Which is kinda silly considering only can draw durning the rainy season, isn’t that rain catchment?
Tis true! But some people just wanna blame somebody else! Don’t be so very greedy, problem solved. ?
I know permitted people who scammed through the regulators and are still drawing water. Or getting water deliveries. Not sure what your comment about “river has to be at a certain level” means? IMO every single grow above a certain size should be visited and inspected this year, shut down if necessary. I’d rather have fish than more and more and more weed….the greed around here is disgusting. And Hey Now- did we ever get a full EIR done on permitting weed farms in these watersheds?! Like we all knew had to happen to make any decent decisions….
It all depends on how they are diverting water. Many divert water in winter and store it for later use when diverting is not lawful. They can divert while being legal. And water deliveries are not an issue unless the person they are buying the water from is illegally diverting it. WHat exactly is your issue? That cannabis is being produced or that drought and diversion affected watersheds are being policed?
Another excuse for the cops? Don’t given them any excuses, don’t go doing things that attract their attention, and people might be pleasantly surprised, living without all that anxiety. The cops really would find themselves perplexed, with little to do, if people just stopped screwing around. Just try not doing all this crap, even for a short while. You couldn’t find a better way to mess with their heads. Go on strike.
Code enforcement.
Just like all the useless laws passed by our lawmakers, it’s a indication of the masturbation of people who are paid to do something, so they write more laws that eventually trickle down to a higher cost of living for working class folk.
What? So you think it should be ok to dry-up streams for cannabis production because it may affect working people? Aren’t salmon fishermen and women working people?
Unfortunately the root causes of our water problem is much more complex than that.
I’m sure you are a catch and release fisherperson?
What exactly does that have to do with anything? I don’t fish the Eel River because those fish are listed under the Federal ESA. The root causes of our water problem is really not that complex. Greed is not complex.
Greed is a human attribute.
Go figure.
Fish is just a source of protein you have to get permission to catch.
One big amusement park, soon to be owned by the CCP.
The worry is the little ma and pa medical gardens who have been cut by police unlawfully, the worry is with homesteaders who often have unpermitted homes, rvs and gray water systems. The worry is a $900k lien against their land. Do they need anything else? Violation of privacy? Have a soul. Not everyone who lives in so hum is a mega grower, I’d say a vast majority are stewards of the land on on the forefront of environmental movements.
So they shouldn’t have anything to worry about if they are “stewards” of the land. This is about focusing enforcement efforts against growers who are diverting water during a drought.
Enforcement efforts against grows that are not paying the government extortion fees you mean. As shown below cannabis growing is minimal compared to what’s grown in the valley which buys our water to grow their non regulated crops. This is about money, money to fuel that chopper the humans flying it and the convoys to chip us. Fuck Legal!!!
Nonsense. Tributary water doesn’t go the the valley which is where these enforcement efforts are concentrated. I am not an advocate for how legalization has gone. However, I know they can’t take water like they did when they were not legal or the way illegal grows do it. What is another broken law when you are already breaking so many? If illegal growers made the effort to implement sound environmental stewardship practices they would get a lot less scrutiny.
To say a legal farm is not abusing and the illegal farms are abusing the tributaries is bullshit. It’s money and it’s only about the money. Those legal farms are only gettin $500 a pound while us illegals are getting $1000 to $2500. These legal distributors are ripping off farmers saying to much weed in the supply. An excuse cause they need to move their crappy corporate weed. As far as the dispensaries are they dropping their per ounce price, no, same price it was in April.
So what is really goin on. Are they flying this chopper in the valley or in what they call the Mecca of pot outside palm springs, no. Guess they don’t water their plants only illegals do. Keep supporting bullshit lies which is being used to torment and destroy local families. Fuck Legal!!!
So if these were legal grows what would be their water consumption?
Exactly. Legal grows are no better. Water used is water used, doesn’t matter it you paid the extortion tax or not.
Water used from winter storm flows.
Water used from summer low flows.
They must get permits for water diversion and report it to DWR and all are public records
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone we are in a drought with a long, hot potentially deadly fire season. If your big enough for them to consider you a problem you deserve to have your plants torn up and chipped stop being so damn greedy.
The whole town area is looking for employees do a small grow and get a real job like a grown up. I have no sympathy for the big illegal grows they are hopefully targeting.
Save whats left of the salmon they need all the help they can before they go extinct.
Right, lets stop making 100,000 dollars a year, well grow enough to get stoned and make 10k then we can work at the Boot Barn or a local Coffee shop like real adults and make 20k a year, wow, 30k a year that sounds like a super duper big boy salary, glad i live in this shithole county so i can work these lame underpaying jobs. YEAH RIGHT!
Great point.
The minimum wage is poverty.
The grown ups who run for elected office usually end up becoming far wealthier by using gaming the system , much to the surprise of most of the well informed public.
The whole system is rigged, and the outlaws are simply growing a plant, but elected officials, and corporate heads are in charge of raping and pillaging the corporate welfare system to eliminate competition.
It’s no wonder we have a government that is out of fucking control.
It’s a war on the people, and the outlaws who go corporate have so much more in common with big ag, and big pharmaceutical, and every other corporate dominated field because they understand how the system works.
You gotta pay people in the right places
Grease them wheels.
The same salmon that are fished commercially? The same salmon that are gil netted in the river? Same salmon that can now be sport fished on the river? Same salmon that can be fished catch and release? Those salmon?
What salmon are legally gill netted in the Eel River? Get your story straight. Are you saying we should allow diverters to dry up streams because the salmon will otherwise be caught in sustainable fisheries and provide income to the local economy as well as high-value protein? Are you saying it is much more important to allow illegal production of cannabis at the expense of salmon because it doesn’t matter?
We illegals arnt killing the creeks, it’s mother nature. The government goons are just using us to help their shit growin family and friends stay in business cause we kick in their asses out selling product. Fuck Legal!!!
Nonsense. I have seen it. Mother Nature was here long before people as were Indigenous people. Salmon were abundant. If you divert in the summer YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Have you looked into how much redway and garberville divert ALL year? Were all the problem
I don’t divert and neither does anyone I know or associate with. None of us are legal and we are not the cause. Mother nature has more to do with the tributaries drying up than legal and illegal growers combined. It’s a bullshit lie to get people like you brainwashed and I have seen it since the early 80s. If they were so concerned they wouldn’t issue any permits, yet they do. Fuck Legal!!
Thats from lots of things, weather, logging etc. There Wasn’t as much drought . more water , fog and rain. The decline of fish is not from grows or there would be more fish in other tributaries that don’t have grows. Its a bigger problem than cannabis.
If your criteria to be busted and have your crop destroyed is “for them to consider”, then you don’t know the history of marijuana ‘enforcement’ / suppression in the Emerald Triangle. So many properties have been wrongly damaged, people’s lives upended, because people like YOU are willing to let some yahoo cops play war-games.
I suggest you read about the legal complaints that CLMP, etc., brought against the cops. You might learn that THE PEOPLE WON and a historic consent decree was established after numerous police / government abuses!
No. We CAN NOT let cops in the field, or heavies back at the office decided these things.
Get a warrant, after approved by a Judge, and reasonable EVIDENCE of a crime, then they can enforce that, while abiding by established strict regulations.
I fully support these actions, and that is all I got to say about that.
1,800,360 gallons per 40 farms based on water storage?
It states related to “illegal cannabis cultivation “?♀️
It’s a shame they haven’t noticed the Van Duzen RIVER.
And to add to the insult and injury, why doesn’t the state have water meters in all of Sacramento? 50% last I saw.
WHATABOUTISM!
Is it possible to find out how much money they spend on enforcing track and trace. Every primitive grower I know sells out the back door to the black market with ease.
It’s the “legal” grows sucking the creeks dry these days, what a freaking joke!
While there may be some hydrologically disconnected aquifers in Humboldt the vast majority of aquifers are hydrologically connected to the creeks. A well in one of those aquifers is the same as a pipe in the creek. Thats why the creeks are drying up.
More legal grows with permitted wells???? They ever think about that.
This thing flew Windy Gap hella hard and then landed top of Mahan this morning at 8am. I think PGE, but either way super stressful start to the day.
It’s PGE they are putting up new poles.
Why are you Hella worried about a chopper flying hella hard what is so hella stressful about it
How many California’s does it take to screw in a lightbulb???
Hella!!!!!
You obviously were not around the rural parcels in the 80’s and 90’s. The reaction to a helicopter, like (to some degree) a modern war veteran, is instinctive and sets off a PTSD reaction in many.
Could you imagine if the same amount of money was spent eradicating rape, or child abuse.
Yeah , they could finally eradicate murder too !
How would they profit from that
Sure, blame the illegals or how about quit selling our fucking water to people living in a desert so they can grow avocados.
Sounds like we need another Netflix documentary “Murder Creek” the missing fish of Humboldt County.
Maybe time for North California to declare independence. Not the pitiful state of Jefferson joke, but all of California from the Bay Area north. Let SoCal desalinate.
The hills and valley on the way to Santa Rosa is totally green with vineyards.
“do to illegal grows”, is this a joke? If the county and/or state did their job, they would notice the “legal” farms have poly pipe in the creeks, sucking ponds dry and wells that are connected to creeks.
What about dairy’s right on the rivers sucking water and spraying it in the fields?
I’m not sure that most of the folks commenting above really grasp just how low the flow rates currently are in the region’s streams and rivers. Given the current conditions enforcement of water withdrawal restrictions is essential if we’re going to keep from killing all of the fish in these systems.
If we don’t do something to protect in-stream flows, we’ll lose entire ecosystems and that would suck.
They are as low as they get many years. Just earlier.
Two things here: low rain fall year. Pretty typical actually in CA. Euro Americans have only been here a short while.
We are in the tail end of the “green rush” there are still outlaw growers and there are legal growers. You have growers who save water in winter, legal or not,which is good, and demonstrably better for fish. There are legal farms with wells that can withdraw now, I’m not sure how good that is but it’s similar to other legal farming.
Legal weed has a lot of water regulations. You report to multiple agencies when and how you pump, and when and how you use the water.
So, weed growers should use forbearance, but people can’t blame growers for what is obviously a meteorological event.
How about hay farmers! They use 10s to 100s of thousands of gallons a day to grow feed an alfalfa. With little to no regulation.
They were flying over permitted farms. Circled numerous times over a permitted farm right next to a parcel with illegal cultivation on it.
wells *ARE* diversions
I’d make the argument that every single grow, legal or not, that exists in the SoHum hills is an insult to the environment. The natural state of things, wet year or dry, is that from May-October it’s dry, and the creeks and the rivers that sustain the fishery rely on what was banked in the aquifers in the winter. That spring doesn’t come from nowhere – it’s all part of the same system. Arguments about the wine producers or the hay farmers or whatever are straw-man BS and “whataboutism” / they don’t address the very real fact that our rivers are dry and water diversion plays a big part in that. I don’t care if it’s weed or tomatoes, agriculture doesn’t belong in the hills – it’s an affront to nature.
So, by your reasoning, people shouldn’t be allowed to make a life in the mountains? Making a living, feeding your family, usually is going to take some water, whatever you are doing. Nature is great, and there are WAY too many people in the woods, I agree with that. But people need to live and use water responsibly. My solution- large water tank for winter storage.
Their solution. ….move people out of the mountains and rural areas.
Into the surveillance grid of stack and pack.
Their solution. ….move people out of the mountains and rural areas.
Into the surveillance grid of stack and pack.
Whew
Ranger and Willow, can’t disagree with you. But to take Willow’s question a bit further, people should only live along waterways? So, Ranger, are you suggesting anyone growing tomatoes and drinking water in the hills, or desert (L.A., Las Vegas), move to Humboldt where the water is? I like Willow’s water tank idea. In fact, my household in Eureka collects water year round from rain, kitchen sink, bathroom sink and shower.
I’m not suggesting that the hills be depopulated, I’m saying that it isn’t the place for commercial agriculture. To whoever inferred that I want people from dry areas to move here – nope. In SoHum and much of Mendow we ARE dry areas – one of the worst-off places for water right now is Mendo. To whoever wanted to educate me about gravity, the Central Valley farms exist for 2 reasons: huge public investment in water infrastructure and wells. They’ve overused the wells without allowing them to recharge so much that the land is sinking. The huge water projects are dry, and the water-intensive crops such as almonds have sucked up much of what there was. The only reasons that LA, Vegas, and Phoenix exist is mass storage in the form or reservoirs and mass delivery systems – an affront to nature on a much larger scale. These have been sustainable to a point, if you don’t care about salmon or the salinization of the Sacramento delta, but that’s ending soon. The Colorado River has been so overdrawn for so long that it too dries up before it reaches the ocean. Lake Powell is one of the biggest man-made disasters on the planet. But back to our area, people can live modest and sustainable lives in the hills. And if you can “water bank” in the wet season with off-stream sources, and do so in a way that doesn’t tear up the land so that sedimentation becomes a problem, go for it. But how many of these huge grows are doing that? Few if any, since weed is so water intensive. Back to my first point – it IS an affront to nature to have commercial agriculture in the hills. The history of the west is the history or water.
This seems like a good place to tout the excellent, highly readable classic on the topic, “Cadillac Desert.”
For the more scientifically minded among us, I’d also recommend the more recent book “The West Without Water,” which explains in some detail just how we know what we know about the 100-year-plus droughts that the-land-we-now-call-California has endured in the near geological past.
Here here.
Great books.
The problem has been very well known for far too long.
To all the growers who think your industry can run unregulated,
I challenge any of you to give 1 single example of any industry that shows current and historical evidence of the ability to self-police their activities and use of the commons.
Good luck.
Regs don’t solve all the problems and often make others…but without regs things would be far worse almost everywhere, and were so in many places.
Use drip irrigation?
Mulch?
Build carbon rich soil? Steeply reducing irrigation & fert use?
Eliminate fert imports?
Got Compost?
As in real organic? No imports
How about swales?
No better place to store water than in the ground.
Use Permaculture design and farm like you’ll live forever.
That’s because the corporate state is hitting the middle class American people who are unable to compete with tactics that would make escobar proud.
It’s a fuckin class war and the state is the enforcement arm of the Corporate office.
Anyone who wants to survive in the business world has to recognize the brutality of the ways and means of the global elite.
You do realize that the crops in the valleys get their water from the hills as well, right? It’s called gravity….
So its OK for the government to divert water out of the mountains to the flat ground for agriculture? But not do agriculture where the water is? You make no sense
Yes yes the greatest robbers of all time……sanctioned by the state and county. If you pump too much water they will come to rob and vandalize your property. All I know is the team that showed up at my place last year were the most deranged barely humans that had ever stepped foot on my property. The fact that the district attorney the planning director and the sheriff let these robberies go sanctioned is a blight to our community. Disgusting abuses of power. Good luck in hell with all your little badges!
It is like they are a space ship. And when they land it’s scarry!
The analysis ranked pasture first among California’s top 10 most water-intensive crops, in some cases grouped by categories (in average acre feet of water applied per acre in one growing season), followed by nuts and alfalfa:
Pasture (clover, rye, bermuda and other grasses), 4.92 acre feet per acre
Almonds and pistachios, 4.49 acre feet per acre
Alfalfa, 4.48 acre feet per acre
Citrus and subtropical fruits (grapefruit,
lemons, oranges, dates, avocados, olives, jojoba), 4.23 acre feet per acre
Sugar beets, 3.89 acre feet per acre
Other deciduous fruits (applies, apricots, walnuts, cherries, peaches, nectarines, pears, plums, prunes, figs, kiwis), 3.7 acre feet per acre
Cotton, 3.67 acre feet per acre
Onions and garlic, 2.96 acre feet per acre
Potatoes, 2.9 acre feet per acre
Vineyards (table, raisin and wine grapes), 2.85 acre feet per acre
Many people also question how much water cannabis takes to grow. The Department of Water Resources didn’t track water usage for cannabis in its 2015 data, but The Washington Post reported in 2015 that the crop uses 1.4 acre feet per acre.
thank you for the post that is more than just soap boxing. nice to see some numbers
Absolutely true. However, whataboutism doesn’t fly. If you are having an impact, you are having an impact. Period.
No proof, just hearsay. They grow weed, they are not permitted, they are the cause logic. Bullshit just pure bullshit. Just trying to justify CDFW paying all those employees and the flying baconators will jump on any funding bandwagon.
this whataboutism stuff is dumb. yeah what about this other cause that is much more impactful. yeah what about that?! derp. what you want people to not be able to do anything on their own property? because news flash it’s all having an impact. fart sniffing is addictive. you are on a computer, you are having an impact. whataboutism is probably the stupidest thing the liberal whackadoos have coined in a while.
Hey, there is a river to the west of both of those places. It is called the Mattole river. They should be trying to keep that river clean and cool. Come on out, fly my neighbors. Please.
The county just permitted a large grow 100 feet from the Mattole river a few hundred feet from Spotted owl and marbled murlett habitat. What an ugly blight on our river. The runoff off fertilizer will go right into the river since the greenhouse site used to be part of the river and filled in. Wells connected to the river will supply the water. The noise from the mixed light and light leakage from the greenhouses will probably chase away the endangered birds according to a wildlife biologist. There is another much larger grow acres right on the Mattole in the works that is getting pushed through Planning now. People need to realize the permitted grows are much larger and have a much bigger impact on the environment. The county, state, CDFW and Water Quality want their money in fees and are willing to look the other way to ruin the environment if you pay them annual fees to support their departments…
Which place is this? Do you have a parcel #? Was the permit walked through by Trevor Bohn? We need to get on this situation. It’s very disgusting and probably criminal…Our enviro groups are not monitoring these permits and why is that?
APN # 108-011-026, 221-171-029. The local environmental groups were informed and have their own battles and besides many donate to these groups and you know the old saying , don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
I bought my place because it’s thriving alive with water. That’s where life should be. All these fake city’s should not be here. Vegas. Palm Springs ect.. the world is overpopulated Iif you take to consideration that most city’s should not exist. Every body should store water. Not buy from the state. People in the city use more water brushing their teeth than I use on 20 plants. That’s the honest truth
thanks freedumb for your info. I personally give every plant 1 gallon per day from the drip. Mulch is approximately 1 foot deep on the patch. For me thats 24 gallons a day. Hmmmmm….that’s less than a third of California’s household average of 85 gallons per person per day.
Hmmm….
I am 67 now so I guess I’m what some would call an “OG” And been in county since ’73.
So I’ve seen the changes too. The biggest change? Northern California is now almost completely in the process of suburbanization.
And the rich people who run the show are moving to get rid of the rural “underclass ” of homesteaders and ranchers and take control of livable environment and safety of rural life.
So get ready for more and more heavy handed busts of insignificant impacts of small-timers.
Then our cabins are going to be condemned and we will be evicted ostensibly because the effing government cares so much about us that they don’t want us to die of thirst out on our homesteads because we can’t, don’t or won’t come up with average 85 gallon per day per person per day to effing WASTE.
I am ready for their gangster shit show to arrive here someday.
I am not looking forward to that day but I am ready.
You all homesteaders ought to be getting ready too whatever that is to you.
Best of luck! Oh and OG Kush is still the KIND!!
It’s a war on independent rural livelihoods.
Well said.
Might try hanging red Christmas ornaments on your plants , so from the air they look like tomato plants.
I got flown pretty hard. Its very unfortunate. I have a 200sqft weed garden with a 215 medical card and about a 3000sqft veggie garden. I use 50 gallons of water every 3 days on my weed garden, so a little over 16 gallons a day. I use about 1000 gallons of water on my veggie garden every other day. 200sqft w/ a medical card is 100% legal, those are the specs on the county website. 200sqft with a medical card 20ft from your property line, followed to a T. The fact that gas was wasted even flying over my garden is BS. The fact that I have a 200sqft medical garden following the rules to a T and I even get flown is BS.
If they do show up or have anything to say about my property though, and all this is truly about the water, is it going to be over the 200sqft medical grow using 16 gallons a day? Or is it going to be over the 3000sqft veggie garden using 500 gallons a day? At this point, what is considered a bigger detriment, and if things are truly about water, will veggie gardens like mine become a problem in the future?
How do they know if they don’t fly? Were you busted?
Did not know they can tell the difference between weed hoops and vegetable hoops. In clear violation of our constitution and a citizens right to due process.
I don’t use hoops for my veggies or my medical garden.
I have known that 1911 but he/she don’t, lol.
?
https://kymkemp.com/2021/06/30/humboldt-county-grower-interviewed-by-calcannabis-for-video/#comment-1372863
You are screwed. County code refers to a ca health and safety code which they interpret as only 6 plants, whether you are recreational or medical they don’t care it’s six plants. Under 5 acres 100 sqfeet. On 5 acres to 9.9 acres you can have 200 sq feet. 10 acres and above 400 square feet. Still county says you can only grow 6 plants in that amount of square footage. A friend of mine just got his medical garden of 400 square on 10 acres chopped had his valid dr rec showed the cops. You are screwed i would reduce to 6 plants you have about 2 weeks
Well now. Isn’t that special!