Pubdate: Thu, 07 Aug 2014
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2014 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Melena Ryzik

DRY CALIFORNIA FIGHTS ILLEGAL USE OF WATER FOR CANNABIS

NICE, Calif. - An abandoned recreational vehicle was the first clue. 
In this hamlet two hours north of San Francisco and barely a mile 
from the largest natural freshwater lake in the state, the trailer 
sat on a hill, hidden from the main drag. Behind it rose a flimsy 
fence, tall enough to shield its bounty: 50 marijuana plants in 
hastily constructed wooden boxes.

"This is common," said Michael Lockett, the chief building official 
here in Lake County, giving a tour of the now-derelict plot, where a 
pipe ran from a stream to a large water tank.

It was just one of hundreds of illegal marijuana operations in Lake 
County, officials said, some of which have been diverting water for 
thousands of plants.

The scene has been repeated across Northern California. Amid the 
state's crippling drought, many communities are fighting not the mere 
cultivation of cannabis - which is legal in the state, though subject 
to myriad restrictions - but the growers' use of water. Marijuana is 
a thirsty plant, and cultivating it at a time when California 
residents are subject to water restrictions has become a sticky issue.

When a statewide drought emergency was declared in January, "the 
first thing we wanted to address was water theft and marijuana," said 
Carre Brown, a supervisor in Mendocino County, a major cannabis hub 
west of Lake County.

By mid-July, the sheriff there, Thomas D. Allman, had already caught 
growers siphoning water from springs because wells had run dry too 
early in the season. "I have told my marijuana team, 'I want you to 
fly the rivers, fly the tributaries; let's prioritize the water 
diversion,' " Sheriff Allman said.

In July, Lake County enacted an ordinance that demanded that growers 
account for their water supply; as in Mendocino, the county also has 
a tip line to identify violators. "It's very pointedly meant to stop 
a lot of what we're seeing - the illegal diversions, damming up of 
creeks, tapping into springs that may be on someone else's property," 
said Kevin Ingram, the principal planner for Lake County.

Late last month, federal and state agents raided the Yurok Indian 
Reservation in a move requested by tribal elders to halt illegal 
marijuana farms whose water use threatened the reservation's supply.

Using Google Earth imagery, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife 
has estimated that outdoor marijuana cultivation in Mendocino County 
and Humboldt County doubled between 2009 and 2012, with what the 
agency described as disastrous effect. A marijuana plant can consume 
five to 10 gallons of water, depending on the point in its growth 
cycle. By comparison, a head of lettuce, another of California's 
major crops, needs about 3.5 gallons of water.

Not all marijuana growers are cavalier about their water use. Swami 
Chaitanya, 71, has been tending - and smoking - cannabis for decades. 
"I grew my first plants in the shadow of the Bank of America in San 
Francisco on Telegraph Hill in the early '70s," Mr. Chaitanya said. 
(He adopted the name Swami Chaitanya after studies in India, and 
prefers it to his given name, which he asked not to use.)

Now ensconced in an off-the-grid farm in Mendocino County, Mr. 
Chaitanya and a few helpers produce a small crop of medical marijuana 
plants for an Oakland dispensary. Their beds are watered daily from 
tanks fed by a spring on the property. To minimize the environmental 
impact, he said, he recycles his wastewater. This year, he has also 
reduced the number of plants, he said.

"Most people we know are saying, 'We're growing less because of 
impending drought,' " Mr. Chaitanya said. "We have a responsibility."

Environmentally minded marijuana growers say that illegal operators 
and water guzzlers are giving them a bad reputation. Seth Little, 28, 
an organic medicinal marijuana grower near the Lake County town of 
Clearlake, said neighbors could be resentful. "They just think that 
we're all kind of dooming everything," he said, "and stealing 
everybody's water, and dumping chemicals into the aquifers."

Mr. Little, who has been growing marijuana for nearly five years with 
a special irrigation system designed to minimize water use, said many 
fellow growers had been heedless of the water problem. "A large 
percentage of them are just really not environmentally aware; they're 
not in compliance," he said.

But the artisanal ways of Mr. Little and Mr. Chaitanya can conflict 
with the demands of the market and, sometimes, the law. Because there 
are countywide restrictions on the number of marijuana plants even 
legitimate growers may keep, Mr. Chaitanya said, they have an 
incentive to make those plants as robust as possible - and that means 
using more water. Mr. Chaitanya suggested that the problem was 
exacerbated by confusing regulations.

Sheriff Allman of Mendocino County was skeptical of this. "That 
sounds like logic they've made up after smoking a joint," he observed.

But, he added, the environmental offenders are not the stereotypical 
marijuana grower.

"Old hippies are not our problem - old hippies get it," Sheriff 
Allman said. "They're going organic; they're doing water reduction." 
So are "young hippies," he continued.

"I'm talking about people that move here in April, grow marijuana as 
fast as they can until October," Sheriff Allman said. "The 
20-year-old kid who wants to make his million bucks, and he's using 
these steroid fertilizers. He doesn't care about how much water he 
uses, or what he puts in the soil."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom