Pot-crop rush roils California county
COPPEROPOLIS, Calif. — The four young men had just started their marijuana harvest in rural Northern California when a dozen sheriff’s deputies swooped in with guns drawn, arrested them and spent the day chopping down 150 bushy plants with machetes.
“I could do this every day if I had the personnel,” Calaveras County Sheriff Rick DiBasilio said during the operation near the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Copperopolis, about two hours east of San Francisco.
Authorities this year have cut down close to 30,000 plants grown without permits in a county that is reconsidering its embrace of marijuana cultivation ahead of statewide legalization.
“There are just so many of them,” the sheriff said of the illegal farms. “It’s neverending.”
Marijuana has deeply divided financially strapped
Calaveras County, among many where growers are increasingly open about their operations and are starting to encroach on neighborhoods.
DiBasilio estimates the county — population 44,000 and about the size of Rhode Island — has more than 1,000 illegal farms in addition to the hundreds with permits or in the process of obtaining them. The influx has caused a backlash among residents and led to the ouster of some leaders who approved marijuana cultivation.
Pot farmers operating legally, meanwhile, say they are helping the local economy and have threatened to sue over attempts to stop them.
California is set to issue licenses in January to grow, transport and sell marijuana for recreational purposes, nearly 20 years after the state first authorized the drug’s consumption with a doctor’s recommendation.
Farmers can legally grow marijuana for recreational County would take on,” she said.
People chose to live in the rural area because “they want to get away from the city,” Moore said. “They want the quiet lifestyle.”
About two-thirds of the land is in Montgomery County, while the remaining third is in Robertson County.
Robertson County Mayor Howard Bradley said he has heard little opposition to the proposed development.
“I understand the concerns of the people who live nearby,” Bradley said. “But, ultimately, in this instance, the biggest part of the decision
consumption next year but are required to get a local permit before applying for a state license, which has sparked a boom in pot-friendly counties.
Calaveras County legalized medical marijuana cultivation last year, seeking to tax the hundreds of farms that popped up in the region after a 2015 wildfire destroyed more than 500 homes.
County officials expected to receive about 250 applications by the 2016 deadline. They got 770. About 200 applications have been approved, a similar number rejected, and the others are still being processed.
The sheriff gets some of the nearly $10 million in fees and taxes paid by legal farmers to crack down on illegal crops, many of which the department has mapped from the air.
The new farms have brought a bustling industry that includes the sounds of generators, bright lights illuminating gardens at night, water trucks kicking up dust on their way to grows, the distinct odor of marijuana, and tents, trailers and other temporary housing for migrant workers.
Local hardware stores’ comes down to the landowners. If they want a megasite, there’s nothing either county can do to prevent it if they’re following planning and zoning regulations.”
Robertson County Economic Development Board Chairman Roger Blackwood said in statement that the goal of developing a megasite is to create quality jobs for residents.
“Over 62 percent of our workforce leaves Robertson County every day and the type of project that this megasite would attract would bring those higher wage jobs to us,” he said. “In fact, this
gardening stocked say where Law supplies. they they enforcement with have sections have marijuana raided found are officials farms farming now pesticides U.S. life,” of an “It said organization has that Bill changed are McManus, banned our seeking way in head the to of ban County. impacts marijuana are “The atrocious.” environmental in Calaveras
fabled To the pot-growing north, even mecca the known has as been the Emerald thrown into Triangle political turmoil as more farmers set up shop ahead of legalization.
The California Growers Association estimates about 3,500 farmers in Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties have applied for local permits and will be in a position to receive state licenses. An additional 29,000 farmers there haven’t bothered with the paperwork, according to the group.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman complained that local laws allowing cultivation are too “gentle” and attract type of project would actually increase tax revenues collected in Robertson County, without raising taxes on anyone.”
The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility, oversees the megasite certification process. To fully qualify, sites need more than 1,000 acres, or 400 hectares, of space, rail and interstate access, infrastructure including roads, sewer, water and electricity or plans to install them and letters of intent from property owners to sell their land.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam said having more than one potential megasite violent crime, including a farmworker’s recent homicide.
In Siskiyou County, leaders declared a state of emergency and called on Gov. Jerry Brown to help with an influx of marijuana farmers, who have snatched up inexpensive land even though pot cultivation is illegal there. Two growers were arrested and charged with offering Sheriff Jon Lopey $1 million to leave their farms alone.
“That’s all you need to know about the type of money involved,” Lopey said. “This isn’t confined to the state. There’s a big market outside of California they are supplying.”
In Calaveras County, voters in January replaced four of the five supervisors who voted to legalize marijuana. The new majority has vowed to repeal legalization and institute a strict ban. But a formal vote has been delayed several times amid threats of lawsuits from farmers.
“So much of this is a cultural war,” grower Beth Witke said. “I’m tired of being demoralized by the ban supporters.” in Tennessee can be key to landing major investors.
“One of the issues we have now is . . . when we have companies that come in and want large sites, right now we just have the west Tennessee megasite,” Haslam told reporters earlier this month. “When we only have one, it’s a limitation.”
Haslam welcomed efforts to develop the new site.
“We think there’s some real long-term value in them developing that for us to have another alternative for somebody that might want to be in the middle part of the state,” he said.