U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORBUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
 
Print Page

News.bytesNews.bytes Extra, issue 360

California marijuana garden cleanup team wins award

Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett presented Department of the Interior Environmental Achievement Awards to ten departmental individuals and employees at the department’s Washington headquarters. “These awards are the equivalent of our Environmental Emmy awards,” she said.

One of the winners was the California Marijuana Garden Clean-up Project Team, with BLM-California's Ukiah Field Office.  As the award stated:

Instances of marijuana growth and harvesting on remote and inaccessible public lands continue to increase.  Not only a problem for the law enforcement community, the growers damage ecosystems by contaminating soil
and water and making creeks run dry.  Growers divert creeks, apply fertilizers and pesticides in inappropriate ways, damage native Manzanita trees to shade marijuana plants, and live on site to protect the marijuana plants creating campsite waste and latrines.  Growers living on site pose a direct threat to the safety of visitors and employees.

Without site clean-ups, growers can easily replant “busted” marijuana gardens.  This Bureau of Land Management pilot project used mustangs adopted through the Wild Horse and Burrow Program to pack out contaminants and debris from two illegal marijuana gardens on BLM managed land.  The success of these two marijuana garden clean-ups will be used as a model for future clean ups.

Mustangs were used to pack out marijuana garden waste
 Henry Klee leads mustangs packed with trash bags of marijuana garden waste

Crew members cleanup drip irrigation hoses at an illegal garden site
Crew members cleanup drip irrigation hoses at an illegal garden site

Team members gather around piles of drip irrigation hose and waste in trash bags
Team members gather around piles of drip irrigation hose and waste in trash bags

The California Marijuana Garden Clean-up Project Team poses with their award. Left to Right: Willie Taylor, Chief of the Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance; James Caswell, BLM Director; Stephen Allred, Assistant Secretary – Lands and Minerals; Lynn Scarlett, Deputy Secretary; John Key, California State HazMat Program Lead; and Gary Sharpe, Associate Field Office Manager, Ukiah Field Office, California
Group photo after the presentation in Washington, D.C.

"Interior Deputy Secretary Scarlett Presents Department’s 2008 Environmental Achievement Awards" (Department of the Interior news release, 11/18/08)

BLM-California News.bytes, issue 360

 
Last updated: 12-04-2008