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TABLE OF CONTENTS Dams: A Perspective on Temporary Prosperity |
Who are the Backland Scammers? By John Griffith Many people want to believe that this stereotype is relevant today. But for the most part they’re wrong, and I tell them so. Few of today’s growers were ever back-to-the-landers. Nor do they share the philosophies of ecologically sustainable living and community-based restoration that are gaining wide practice thanks to the back-to-the-landers. The 21st-century pot fields that I’m speaking of are grown for gross profits on public lands, slurp up precious water from diminishing streams, and are frequently reliant on products from the industrial society—diesel fuel, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. I call people who grow marijuana like this Backland Scammers. Some Backland Scammers are responsible for heinously grave assaults on the wild places where they make their profit (often the same wild places that the back-to-the-landers helped to save). I should also add that people growing on their own private land—wild or not—can be guilty of the same eco-crimes. Most of you are probably already associating these Backland Scammers with those Mexican cartels you’ve read about or seen creeping about in the deep woods. There is certainly documented evidence that would support that theory, but some of you locals are culprits too. So put away your assumption beads and your staff of judgment and keep reading. We need to talk about this. Many pot fields are grown near a watercourse, often a little stream or spring, right? And frequently the entire thing, or a large portion of the water, is diverted toward someone’s cash crop. Oops, excuse me, I meant their medicine...um, er… their plants. Maybe some reader just gasped and screamed, “How dare you accuse me!” Then sucked down on the pipe, exhaled smoky calmness, and added, “Well, I didn’t see anything living in that stream except for a few water bugs.” Chances are you wouldn’t see many of the rare and/or endangered amphibians that depend on that water since they don’t come out in the heat of day. Your little “irrigation” streams (AKA tributaries) were contributing the clear and cold water to threatened and endangered river species that depend on it—like our imperiled salmon! The river is made up of water from all those little tributaries. If a mature pot plant takes several gallons of water per hot day and you have fifty of them and the creek you’re irrigating from is but a trickle in mid-summer anyway, then you have become an illegal version (a Mini Me) of the Potter Valley Project. Selfish and destructive! And what about the generator you have operating around the clock? You know, the one that’s sitting by the water, cloaked by the thick growth of the riparian corridor. Is it leaking into the stream? Studies indicate that 50 percent of fish will die when exposed to about 1 teaspoon of diesel in 25 gallons of water. The amount of water hijacked and polluted from the already over-allocated Eel River and its tributaries is sickening on a few levels. Years ago while doing stream habitat surveys for the Forest Service, I discovered the total diversion of a small stream to a Backland Scammer’s pot plantation. The stream was formerly habitat for steelhead and flowed into a small wetland (one of the few left in that area after ranchettes started popping up). The wetland was habitat for a couple species of threatened amphibians and home and water source for other wildlife. The stream had been diverted into a recently dug pond and spilled out and flowed down a well-worn trail that the amateur had used too many times and that probably led right to his mother’s house. Worse, the scene was trashed with plastic debris (including grow bags), and there were enough containers of chemicals sitting around for a stupid president to justify the invasion of a Middle East nation. There was a pooping hole a few steps from the original stream, and the area was strewn with the bones of poached animals, rat poison, and a box full of cheap porn magazines. I was furious, but I was young (22). The youthful version of myself was loyal to the insensitively coined phrase, snitches are bitches. So ratfink I did not. Instead, I “damned” the diversion dam, put the stream back in its course, and wrote “You’re an asshole” across the voluptuous nudity displayed on the cover of one of his mags and set it on a tub of unidentifiable liquid blue stuff. But the worst kinds of Backland Scammers are the ones who blaze roads into the forest. An engineer’s training they have not. These road makers do not take into account hydrological processes (water movement), and their efforts often cause landslides that bury important gravels necessary for salmon spawning—or the baby salmon themselves. These roads and poorly built trails can become wilderness access routes for invasive species like bull and star thistle, pampas grass, knapweed, and the range-expanding, nest-usurping cowbird. Invasive species are second only to direct habitat destruction in their ability to cause the extinction of native plants and animals. These roads and trails also let in poachers, irresponsible ORV drivers, and predators that would not normally penetrate unfragmented woods. For more information on how destructive roads are in wild places, check out the book A Road Runs Through It. Following are a few suggestions that you can give that Backland Scammer in your life to help him stop being so destructive. These tips may also serve a clueless neighbor on private land. First, tell him (or her) that since he’s already being sneaky with his public-land plantation, why not slip in a few appropriately sized water tanks next to his site, camouflage them, and fill them up from the stream during the high-flow months (winter). Our salmon especially need that summer and fall water—so tell him to stop taking all of it! The Eel River is already suffering terribly from its water being diverted for unnecessary yet legal purposes, and the illegal agriculture may ultimately be the stem that breaks the mule’s back, no matter how “clean” your scene is. So stocking up during rainy days would be a major help. Second, tell that asshole (or that close friend or neighbor) that before he clearcuts the native vegetation in our shared forest lands and sows his Asian beauty, to take note of what is already growing there, and replant the same stuff when he harvests and leaves (if it’s native, of course). Better yet, tell him to pot up some of those natives and then replant them in late fall. Around harvest time, a lot of the native plants are in seed. Suggest that while he’s sitting there listening for helicopters, he collect some seeds to sprinkle around on his way out. I recommend a native grass or pea species if they’re already growing in that area. Third, if he insists on using chemicals, please urge him to place his plot far from the streams. People drink that water and so does our already diminishing wildlife! Advise that he grow organically. At least say something about his rat poison. It’s an equal opportunity killer. It kills far more than the pests he’s after. Even you legal growers should try sprinkling some bobcat and fox crap around your plants. The rats smell it, get scared, and never come back. Since you don’t have five years and a wildlife tracker to help collect enough bobcat excrement, then buy something like Shake-Away. It smells of the predators’ poop, and I hear it works. (I’ve never tried it, I don’t grow. I work in eco-restoration if you haven’t already guessed.) You can also install a barn owl box. Let the owls do your work. They’d be glad to. Fourth, if he blazes a road or a fat-ax trail into the woods, go down to Highway 101, find a reeking skunk carcass, go to his house, and slap him across the face with it. Then spread word that he grows nature-destroying bud and that by smoking it the toker will accumulate the wrath of the Earth Goddess in their body that will manifest itself as tumors on their private parts! There is a plethora of other environmental hazards involved in growing irresponsibly. What I’ve covered in this article is merely a pimple on a hairy arse that could be looked at. It would be great if some of you experienced growers (legal or not) would disseminate info about your eco-friendly growing methods to those up-and-comers before they metamorphose into Backland Scammers. And where’s the Green Growing Stamp? There is no reason that legal and conscientious growers need to be lumped in the same group as those profiteering destroyers of nature. There’s also no reason why California’s number-one cash crop need cause the further decline of our watershed’s health or the extinction of some of our biotic brethren. For some, marijuana is truly only that—a cash crop. But for many others, it’s a medicine. But was your medicine grown in healthy ways? I challenge all of you to ask yourselves: How medicinal is a plant when growing it causes the decline of already endangered species? And also ask: How is it medicinal when the cultivation practices pollute three of the four essential ingredients for life: air, soil, and water? The fourth ingredient is sunlight. Enjoy it. And let the river flow. |