This Week in the Mercury
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Drugs Give a Hoot: Pot Pollutes.
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 4:18 PM
This little post on the New West blog focuses on reports that gun-toting marijuana ranchers roam Southern Oregon's woods (maybe true?) but I think the actually interesting point it brings up is that pot pollutes:
In Oregon’s Grant County, manmade damns and chemical-laced pools were discovered along tributaries of the John Day River. I’ve come across similar operations while hiking along the Chetco and Winchuck rivers in southwest Oregon. Pot-growing operators pour fertilizer into pools of said rivers and run irrigation lines to their plants. These rivers and their crystal-clear tributaries are not alone.“They dump it by the 50-pound sack right into the water supply,” said Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer, whose department seized 60,000 pot plants at nine operations this summer in raids with the Oregon State Police, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and other agencies.
“It’s a really concentrated level,” he said. “You know it’s got to be harmful for the environment.
I've heard lots of arguments about legalizing pot so the state can reap tax benefits, but what about an environmental argument? If growing marijuana was legal, growers would have to follow Oregon environmental regulations.
Also, please note that the comments thread on that post degenerate into a shouting match between people with the names "Juniper Berry" and "Beargrass" who refer to each other derogatorily as "Dingleberry" and "Bearass".
h/t to Sightline.
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