Water, Odor Issues Alleged in Carlotta Cannabis Farm Expansion
A Carlotta area cannabis farm is seeking to expand but water use issues and a neighboring property owner’s complaint about odor will complicate county approval.
The permit hearing for the expansion was on the consent agenda of the Humboldt County Planning Commission’s May 7 meeting but it was continued to May 21.
The floor was opened to discussion and public comment, however, and there was a lot of it.
The permit application, from Eureka resident Van Levi doing business as Carlotta Gardens LLC, is for a 20,000 square-foot expansion of an existing 50,000 combination mixed light/outdoor cannabis farm in the Carlotta area.
With the expansion, the farm’s permitted annual water use will increase to 1.76 million gallons sourced from a groundwater well.
And that got a lot of commentary from commissioners.
Commisioner Noah Levy had pulled the continuance for discussion due to “one point that puzzled me” – why a 20,000 square-foot expansion would double the farm’s annual water use.
“Our understanding is that they don’t necessarily believe they will use that much but they want to have the allocation permitted so that they have the ability to experiment with different cultivation methods,” said Senior Planner Cliff Johnson.
Other commissioners flagged water use as a concerning issue that’s bigger than the permit in question.
Saying “I think y’all are probably sick of hearing me say this,” Commissioner Lorna McFarlane reiterated her oft-spoken concerns about “over-extracting from groundwater.”
She said she “would lean towards not allowing an excessive amount of water draw,” adding, “heaven forbid a neighbor’s well was to run dry.”
Groundwater use is an issue the county’s been grappling with for years and a countywide groundwater assessment is being worked on.
“I think some of the water use we permit is already potentially excessive,” said McFarlane, and without a “watershed-scale groundwater assessment” she said the commission is in “very murky territory.”
She added she won’t allow a doubling of water use.
Commissioner Todd Fulton agreed and Commissioner Iver Skavdal said the amount of water use “seems a lot more than we’ve approved on other similar projects.”
Planning Director John Ford said water use is “highly variable because it depends upon the location and the type of farming.”
During a public comment period, a neighbor of the farm said there’s concern about water use because “everybody in Carlotta is on a well.”
But most of her commentary was on another issue.
“It smells terrible when the wind’s blowing our direction, which it usually is,” she said, adding “it stinks like crazy” and at times “it smells like an actual skunk is in our yard.”
She said she and her husband plan on selling the house soon and “who wants to buy a house that smells of marijuana all the time.”
Commissioner Peggy O’Neill said she has “sympathies with the odor issue” – enough to lead her to not support the permit’s approval.
Johnson noted that part of the permit application is an exception to requirements on odor control.
The conversation drifted into legal implications, with McFarlane asking if odor constitutes a “legal taking” of property similar to a situation where the activities of one property owner causes flooding of a neighbor’s property.
When she asked if the county could be sued if cannabis odor prevented the sale of the public commenter’s property, legal staff shut the conversation down because “we don’t ask legal questions about county liability on the dais.”
The hearing was continued to the commission’s May 21 meeting.
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Having lived in Carlotta, if at times it smells like a skunk was in your yard, it’s a good possibility that a skunk was in your yard.
The skunk smell is from burning weed. Growing weed smells botanical. I don’t think those homeowners are going to make a good case here with that. I’ve had to point out to some elderly folk into in Eureka that is was actually a skunk under their house rather than someone growing weed near by. Folks that hate weed smells would hate Japan. It smells skunky all over because they burn hemp as offerings in Shinto temples.
My experience, in my own property, is different than yours. I have the same experience as the neighbor voicing a complaint. Perhaps people that do not partake on pot intake, perceive it w/ a different sense of smells? BUT my husband, a pot user, share my “smell experience”, as we often comment on it, when the wind blows a farm into our property.
I live in the center of Eureka. If I smell pot it is more than likely burned from a user as opposed to a farm. It smells in town from the cars speeding by. Farms stink. You ever been by a chicken farm? OMG. Dairy farms and meat cattle farms stink of death.
You’re in Eureka, not the hills. Very different things. Do you have a 20k+ sq. ft grow next to you? I can assure you when the wind is right it will get your attention. Much more so during drying as all that evacuated air has to go somewhere. You also have other smells such as diesel generators, dust, unknown hired hands going in and out and other noise as well as nightly light pollution. What makes it worse? 5 of them. And you get no say in that either.
And you’re worried about cattle farms? None of those right in the middle of Eureka either.
I must admit I was bummed when driving through Honeydew last Autumn. I have fond memories of the sweet smells of nature there. While I like the smell of fresh and burning bud, I miss the scents of nature…the Sweetgrass, Pepperwood, Melissa, Madrone, Tan Oak, Fir, Redwood, on and on — can’t bottle that.
I think folks in town such as myself do not understand entirely what happened in the shift from gardener, to farmer, to grower, to factory out in the hills.
And yet…you have so much to say about something you know nothing about!
I’ll tell you this, happiness is not having one but 4 pepperwoods right next to you. I haven’t paid a penny for bay leaf for soup and spaghetti in years. And when one decides to drop a branch, free firewood! Downside is the pigs like peppercorns that drop and that can be problematic. Or free bacon. Either or.
I’m a people person. I live on Carson Park. I’ve got a palm tree.
Dates too?
I think so but it’s not close enough to another palm. I have thousands of photos of it but I have no idea what kind of palm it is. I’m terrible. I even collect the antler looking things it drops in storms.
🙂 The scent of Sweetgrass is most prevalent here.
Also — the name escapes me at the moment — the trees leaves smell strongly like bubblegum, once used to flavor ales and beer. And Tan Oak blossoms.
Magnolia maybe? Cherry tree bark? Brewer’s yeast will do that too, the bubblegum flavor anyway. Wisteria smells like bubblegum to me. I have had bootleg root beer when in the south made from Sassafrass (illegal now due to being a carcinogen) and it has a definite bubblegum taste, but not here. Sweetgrass I notice more after maybe a light rain in spring or morning drizzle and a long day of sun seems to make it pop out. That’s a nice thing about going in and out of the hills; you can be blindfolded and know exactly where you’re at or what valley based on the aromas. You can even feel the changes over the ridges, which I’m sure you’re aware of.
distinct Bazooka Joe bubblegum scent…
first noticed out Smith-Etter where Ocean comes into view. Also on Peavine Peak NE of Reno where it is a shrub rather than a tree.
Greasy, waxy leaves.
My PlantSnap app says it’s Trema micranthum or Jamaican nettletree or Capulin. Native to warmer areas in the W. hemisphere and particularly Mexico to Jamaica. It’s in the family Cannabacae, which includes hemp. I also noticed that it’s used for Amate, which is a type of bark paper.
Nope…I’ll remember the correct id name given enough time…
Smells the same in Honeydew as it always has! Any disappointment was in your own mind. Stop driving and walk, maybe that’d help! It makes a big difference if it’s right after an autumn rain or three days into a smokey fire somewhere
That sounds like a nightmare! I’ve only lived in Eureka about 20 years and pretty much in the same square mile but I am an old lady and have lived other places so I do have a bit of variety in my life experience. I wouldn’t want to live near ag because of the reasons you state. I’m sorry for your unhappiness. Thank you for helping me understand.
First thing is don’t complain too much about the surroundings especially if you’re new. That said, your neighbors, and it would be in their best interest, to NOT adversely affect the same neighbors. Water starts wars. Avoidable ones too when people come to agreements beyond money. It’s a quality of life issue too that people pay a crap ton of money to acquire.
What something I see play out a lot is issues over well water. People seem to think that you can drop a pump in any hole and draw out endlessly. Geology and changing water tables will remind you how wrong you are to ignore them. That is, in our highly fractured area, a well at Point A can affect Point B even if it’s a quarter mile away, because that same water travels either through fractures, osmosis or gravity (one is higher than the other). Anything that gets pulled or injected back in affects all who are connected to that system. And this is where large agricultural operations can be very detrimental to ALL users.
I’ve a large grow next to my spot. Their operations don’t directly affect me beyond later in summer with odors and generator noise, but they’ve actually done work to mitigate dust, noise, light pollution, etc, , they’re legitimate as far as the county and state is concerned, and their water use doesn’t physically affect mine. We’re amicable neighbors and we coexist. I cannot say the same for other grows in the area, and some are rather contentious with people. Some are downright horrible people, so I’m content with those next to me. We know where the fence lines are and if anything, having a well armed friendly neighbor has it’s benefits.
Now if they wanted to double in size? They’ll exceed what the land can give back and start affecting people that didn’t want to be. Now the county and state has to get involved. Good luck.
Edit: To add I’m not UN-happy. I’m content actually. But I can say from others experiences that living next to large ag operations, especially where none existed a generation ago can make for a lot of upset people, more so if those doing the additions have a “F-you, I’m doing what I want” attitude, and not expect resistance.
My neighbors are directly upstairs and right beside me. It’s historical architecture, the walls are paper thin. You have to learn to be super cool with each other here, super quickly in town. There’s no secrets here. I love it. Learning how to be cool with your neighbors is aces and important for survival. I love mine. I’m sorry about yours.
Well no, mine I get along fine with them. Others around however not so much. If anything, I’m very happy that the Bulgarians up the creek are long gone. Always fun to have some guy that doesn’t speak a lick of English, or even Spanish cruising your fence lines with a quad and a gun and staring at you like you’re the criminal.
My experience, on my own property, is also different from Angie’s. As someone who both “partakes on pot intake,” as well as grows pot on the property, I will say that “burned marijuana” smells different from “green marijuana,” as cops call it, but that: 1) BOTH smell like skunk, and also that 2) the “green marijuana” smells even MORE like skunk, than the “burning marijuana” which also smells like smoke, diluting the pure essence of skunk.
I will concede to your nose. I think the issue is more of is it a pleasant smell to you or is it likely to induce panic.
Some people just like to smell and hear nature…a pond full of frogs, the smell of oak and pepperwood trees, the wind through them, hear birds singing. You know, things that don’t induce any panic, therapeutic things.
Volatile Sulfer Compunds are what gives weed a skunk smell. I actually like it. Give me weed that smells like skunk spray at a diesel spill at an asphalt plant.
At one point I was doing terp training with my nose but luckily I remembered I was already an artist and had a bunch of other stuff to do instead. Glad I dipped out on the scene, considering.
Yuck! 🙂 I dislike the diesels; especially Sour D. They smell too much like a real Skunk to me. Actually, I like the scent of real Skunk spray much better…
Sweet Cedar & Citrus Sativa is my preference.
Sorry Angie- the growing plant can definitely smell like skunk. 🦨
I lived in a suburb of Tokyo for 3 years, traveled extensively and spent 6 weeks at Lake Nojiri one summer. NEVER smelled pot. Hemp is not the same as Pot, and many shrines are Buddhist, as well as shinto.
Yes, it was a skunk in your yard, only the skunk is the pot farmer. These people cause problems where ever they are located. They kill deer which like to eat the pot leaves, poison the streams with their damn toxic chemicals, run generators day and night, etc. They should not be allowed to build near homes, businesses, etc. I feel sorry for the folks that want to sell their home and leave the area, but they will probably take a large loss just to get away.
Down in Alabama it is peanut farms that stinks so bad. Farming just stinks.
With the price so low how do you afford a expansion and a million dollar buildout in town with out doing something illegal lol
If you have a reliable outlet there’s still plenty of profit at the current price points.
That’s what motivates the expansion, anyone running profitably these days has pretty exact per unit profit numbers and increasing units is their only viable path to increased profitability.
Whether the confidence in the longterm health of the market is justified is another conversation, but it’s far from out of the question
People living in a town that smells like cow dung half the year, pretending to get offended by the smell of a plant.
Hence the name…Skunk Bud!
The groundwater issue for cannabis is absolutely insane. The amount used may sound like a lot but if I wanted to grow hay I could use 10s of thousands of gallons of water an hour and no one would bat an eye. If we are going to act like this is an insane water usage why is other agricultural water not a severely scrutinized
It’s tied to the benefit or problems. Hay gets the consumer in town meat, milk, fiber. Pot gets them incapacitated humans. In fact, since a lot of places restrict hemp used for other than pot cultivation, it can lose them fiber and other useful byproducts.
Short answer: one is a food crop (or feed for food) the other isn’t. You aren’t making a salad out of sinsemilla leaves, nor a meat stew. We need to eat. One is an intoxicant the other is not.
Now if you could hybridize THC into an apple or almond, you’ll be the next billionaire.
I have this rare genetic disease, tuberous sclerosis. They had found that cannabis was great for seizures and companies were fighting to patent a cannabis medication. There’s an FDA approved one pretty much just for us. Last week, the patient group that pushes for research for us put out a press release about how close to gene therapy researchers are.
So like a week ago, I would have been all “medical medical medical” to you but today, I’m looking forward to an even more interesting future.
You and everybody else have strong powerful immune systems. My Cancer research has taught me disease develops when the immune system is overwhelmed and ceases to recognize and eliminate faulty cells. Genetics evolve in response to extra requirements due to environmental stresses. Genetic diseases such as TSC are responses to generations of exposure to environmental stressors. Many of those environmental stressors are due to pesticide use, especially around Tobacco, Peanut, and Livestock farms. Glyphosate in particular is responsible, although Monsanto/Bayer has spent billions to convince the World otherwise as they reap Trillions in profits.
Very nice! You are correct. Its almost too strong of an immune system. I’ve been on rapamycin for over 15 years. While it might not make the tech bros younger it has definitely extended my life.
With reclassification of marijuana from CI to CIII that opens the door to federally approved research that doesn’t get the lab researchers and owners put in prison. That’s a galaxy changing thing. Now all the claims about health benefits–or none at all–can be verified and promoted through actual data and studies, not anecdotal claims and comments on the internet–or things an old stoner could have told you 50 years ago. Now I’m not one to sit and believe THC cures cancer or all that, but now there can be data to back up or refute it.
I’m saying that the lynchpin disease providing all this data is about to not need cannabis. The gene therapy is preclinical so weed has less than ten years to find another disease they can get hard evidence from.
There’s already an FDA approved cannabis drug from the anecdotal evidence I provided as part of the 215 program. There were some people that got 215s for insomnia or whatever and used it to grow weed. I got mine and participated in preclinical trials out of UCSF. This is ages ago.
The official FDA marijuana-derived drugs are Epidiolex, which is for the condition you describe above, Marinol, and Cesamet. Those are synthetic derivatives, and not botanical concoctions which the FDA has not approved and those are all Rx only. You aren’t getting them at a dispensary. Not legally anyway. Marinol I’m familiar with from people that take it for nausea, particularly after chemo treatments.
But, as I said the reclassification is important because now more than just universities or government labs can do real, more beneficial research without fear.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/fda-and-cannabis-research-and-drug-approval-process
Regarding Paragraph 13…
I think there has been a “watershed scale groundwater assessment” already completed! Its called “California Basin Plan 2011” which identified all the water in the state and gets updated every 3 years. Read the CBP 2011 first, then all the other water inventories, maps and charts are not confusing.
I’m gonna guess the planners either don’t know about this info or just like to act uninformed for political reasons. Either way they don’t seem up to the task!
Or being willfully ignorant. I subscribe to half a dozen of the CA water resource board public groups and changes to rules happen monthly, let alone 2011. Far too many pages of things to list that mostly don’t apply to me whatsoever but I read anyway as a project of this size is on their radars, or should be. Heck, issues with marijuana grows are why the state is clamping down on groundwater use and contamination. What you do upstream is not supposed to hurt what’s downstream (historical note: this is how crystal geyser bottling got away for a while tapping Mt Shasta spring headwaters using some obscure water use rule).
Here’s the page, one of must be half a million on the waterboards site concerning water quality for cannabis operations. Should be required reading. Also, trying to get an exemption on odor control for something that already stinks, and make it worse is not very…neighborly. And this isn’t a NIMBY thing as a lot of residents were around far longer than the grow op ever was. They’re infringing on their peace of mind and quality of life even more. And want an exemption for it.
This is the rules on discharge.
>”I’m gonna guess the planners either don’t know about this info or just like to act uninformed for political reasons.”
YOU’VE GOT A BINGO !
I use 300-500 gallons per month in SoCo. My water bill used to be around $100 every 2 months 4 years ago. Now it is around $120 PER month. Retired on SS. Very little too. Even using 0 gallons, my bill would be about $90 per month. Don’t grow here as you will go broke.
This isn’t a grow op anymore. This is a factory with considerable use of natural resources and a large footprint (physical, not carbon). It’s more industrial ag now and not some family farm. It’s going to smell more than it does now.
I’m so glad we ferociously abated the hell out of those 20 plant criminal grows that were screwing up the environment! John Ford to the rescue!!
My contention is straightforward: groundwater regulation must apply equally to all agricultural operations. It currently does not. Based on the ruling discussed in Friends of the Eel River v. County of Humboldt (Lost Coast Outpost) , the County continues to impose forebearance and curtailment requirements on some producers—particularly cannabis—while exempting others, such as large‑scale cattle and alfalfa operations.
I fully agree that forebearance is a responsible best‑management practice. However, unless the County is prepared to apply that standard uniformly across all farming types, selectively enforcing it against one sector is arbitrary, discriminatory, and legally indefensible. In short: until the County regulates all agriculture equally, it has no standing to single out cannabis.
I am also both happy and grateful to live next to cannabis farms that provide local jobs and are typically locally owned and operated. These are family farms, and family farms strengthen communities. The claim that “no one wants to live next to a weed farm” is subjective at best. Many of us do, and we value the economic and cultural contributions these farms make.
Humboldt County has had a cannabis‑growing culture for more than half a century. It is part of our identity, and it deserves protection and respect. I do not dispute that groundwater depletion is harmful; it absolutely is. But any regulatory framework addressing that harm must be evenly applied to all agricultural sectors before the Planning Department considers singling out any one crop or industry.
*FOER was in the right even if they lost this lawsuit but I would also like to say if we want producers to use better management we need to invest in them provide grants or subsidies for them to be able to meet better standards. You can’t just put people out of business and call it good
Agriculture does not benefit all the public equally so the idea that government needs to treat it equally doesn’t make sense. It also doesn’t impact the public equally. What you are talking about protecting the profitability to the owners as if public good doesn’t matter.
Water use does impact the public equally everyone depends on the same aquifers, rivers, and watersheds. What you’re proposing is discrimination. Not everyone eats meat; it’s not as if we can say, “Well, I’m a vegetarian, so ranchers should have to pay more and because my friends and I like quinoa and I say quinoa growers get to pay less” That’s not how public policy works nor is it legal to do so unless you have clear evidence based justification. Odor isn’t a justification and no evidence has been produced in a meaningful way thus far to justify unequal application of the law
Keep in mind those exemptions and forebearances were mostly because they didn’t pay taxes on their operations. And yes that framework is evenly applied, or are you referring to enforcement of violations? That’s a different issue. Anybody taking ground water by any method has to have the permits, a mitigation plan, and likely one of several monitoring schemes going on, from does your catchment have sufficient engineering to not fail and flood your neighbor, to how much water is coming from your spring and is any of it going back to the creek, and especially how much you pull from a river from a legal operation. Those rules change too, and based on what 1)you think you need and 2)what they believe is OK and what has downstream or environmental adverse effects.
If you think the cow pasture isn’t subject to the same rules, they are. They too have a legal framework to adhere too. However you have jokers in that business too that find ways to circumvent rules. A couple of which seem to have some rather public legal troubles that never seem to end.
One thing that is more difficult for grow ops is obviously financing. More legal or established businesses can get SBA loans or Ag grants to upgrade infrastructure and not put them out of business. Weed grows don’t really have this available, what with it being still technically illegal, banks don’t want to touch it so financing is all on them. Best you can do is just file the permits, pay the taxes (the FTB is ruthless if they get involved) and stay off other’s radars.
IMHO:
>”Humboldt County has had a cannabis‑growing culture for more than half a century. It is part of our identity, and it deserves protection and respect.”
Same thing as Meth Labs ?
>”Humboldt County has had a Meth Lab culture for more than half a century. It is part of our identity, and it deserves protection and respect.”
Sure…
How’s Spike? 🙂
OOOHHH wwwwhhhattts ttthhhattt smeeelllll aka to or from or by… .sounds an awful lot like any nusance wanting any be charge as felonies?
The Van Duzen doesn’t make it to the Eel in the summer so much water is sucked out of it for pot.
Because there’s Sooo much money to be made off of dope now….. get a job loser
I thought the market had tanked and there was no money to be made. When they don’t want to pay their bills or taxes, they cry about how bad the market is, yet farms are wanting to expand all the time. Which one is is it? Aside from that, please don’t pull anymore water from the Van Duzen. It already runs dry on the surface near the bridge every summer.
BINGO !
Just an idea? That perhaps we have enough pot farms already?
Didn’t lotta come late into this market? now they want to do this water grab bs to the community of Carlotta. There is already plenty of pot. And there are so many big commercial farms disturbing our environment and people’s lives.
On, I think there’s room for small craft growers, similar to small craft beer breweries, offering cannabis grown the right way, not industrial scale, not in hoop houses, but carefully and lovingly crafted outdoor, full sun, not in rows, but each plant given a nice space. Makes a HUGE difference in the final “product”.
How can you afford to expand in a failed industry lol black market money and a bid building in town to funnel it in to lol..jokes one of the neighbors should plant a bunch of males 😎
There’s a few dollars to be made of each pound. But to make any money you need to grow thousands. And the SMELL ISSUE shit we could cover up the smell of a indoor in bloom back in the 80s. You can buy the product at the grow stores. It’s called ona ODER NUETRALIZING AGENT.
Just to throw this out there I know there’s alot of ex growers out there! New mexico legalized a few years ago and has big farms that would LOVE TO HAVE PEOPLE WITH EXPERIENCE! Legal , medical, or even the old illegal. They have head growers that started in 2011. New mexico has free Healthcare for children free state ran daycare free collage if your grades are high enough ,cheap gas and work for humboldt heads.