Marijuana Farms Take Root In National Parks
Steve Yu looks for marijuana farms in Yosemite National Park - Steve Yu, a special agent with the National Park Service, looks for evidence of marijuana farms in the backcountry of Yosemite. (Martin Kaste/NPR)
It's common knowledge that marijuana is one of America's biggest cash crops. In 2008, law enforcement confiscated more than 5 million plants in California alone.
What's less known is that much of that pot is grown on public lands. And, increasingly, the covert pot farms are moving into pristine lands — even parks.
Marijuana cultivation has been found in more than a half-dozen national parks on the West Coast; the latest to join the list is North Cascades National Park in northern Washington state, where a farm was raided last summer.
(Martin Kaste/NPR)
In Yosemite, one of the crown jewels of the national park system, park rangers are constantly searching for new pot farms. Just a few miles from El Capitan and other popular tourist spots, Special Agent Steve Yu and Park Ranger Chris Kuvlesky are sneaking through the ponderosa pine. They're on what they call a "creep": a stealthy hike through an area that's been used in the past by pot growers. They step carefully, because even the snapping of a dry branch could be enough to telegraph their presence to growers who might be hiding in these woods.
Pot farms tend to follow the same rough design: terraces cut into a remote hillside, with some trees and bushes left standing to provide cover from the air. An irrigation hose taps the nearest creek; at one Yosemite pot farm raided in 2007, the hose ran for nearly a mile — buried and camouflaged the whole way. Yu admits he has a grudging respect for the effort that goes into these "gardens."
"I don't know how these guys do it," he says, referring to the growers who live out in these woods all summer, carrying in hundreds of pounds of food, fertilizer and chemicals, and living under tarps. "When we get the handcuffs on them, when we get our hands on them, it feels like these guys are carved out of oak."
(Martin Kaste/NPR)
A Major Drug Enterprise
Relatively few of the marijuana-tenders are caught. At the first sign of trouble, they usually slip away through the brush. That's the main reason these pot farms are on public land: It's easy to cut and run.
But law enforcement agencies are learning more about these marijuana gardens. For one thing, they're not stand-alone projects. Investigators say pot farms in parks and national forests are often part of larger networks.
A recent Drug Enforcement Administration investigation of a Mexican crime family's alleged crystal methamphetamine ring led agents to discover that the family also had a marijuana-growing operation on the side. They call it a major enterprise; a Seattle-based DEA agent (anonymous here because he works undercover) says it stretched across several Western states.
"They had a plan in place, they had stash houses, they had living places for people and they had people whose role was just to provide food. Each person had their little skill set that they applied to the job, and the leaders never got their hands dirty," the agent says.
The agent says family members — most of them Mexican citizens — drove in from around the country to help with the farms. They moved up the West Coast in a wave, following the spring planting season as it moved north.
The DEA says the family — known as the Barragans — has been known to drug enforcement for decades, both in Los Angeles and in Mexico. Some of the Barragans are now in federal custody near Seattle, awaiting federal trial. Their lawyer would not make them available for comment.
Middle Managers In The Marijuana Ring
Arnold Moorin, the DEA's special agent in charge in Seattle, says the people running these pot farms are just middle managers.
"It's all controlled by the Mexican cartels in Mexico, where the command and control sits," he says.
But other DEA officials are reluctant to use the word "cartel."
Gordon Taylor is the DEA's assistant special agent in charge in Sacramento, and he has years of experience investigating pot farms in California. He says the large-scale farms on public land are run by networks.
"Most of these groups are headed by Mexican nationals that live in the United States illegally," he says.
But he stops short of calling them "cartels."
"When I hear somebody use the term 'drug cartels,' what that means is the identified drug cartels that are operating down in Mexico," Taylor says. "We have not seen direct evidence tying [the marijuana gardens on public lands] to the cartels down in Mexico."
Those who have experience with the pot farms also draw a distinction between the bosses and the workers.
"Most of them are poor people from large families in Michoacan," says Tim Zindel, a federal public defender in Sacramento who has represented many of the garden tenders caught by federal law enforcement. He calls them "disposable workers" — campesinos who sometimes barely know where they are.
A 'Fast-Moving Threat'
Still, their growing presence in the backcountry intimidates people who spend a lot of time there, people like Chris, a graduate student who asked not to share his last name. In 2007, while doing fieldwork in California's Plumas National Forest, he accidentally uncovered a hidden irrigation hose. He looked up and saw an armed man heading his way.
"He held the gun at his side, and he said, 'Come here,' " Chris said.
Chris tried to tell the man he didn't care what the hose was for, but it became clear the man didn't understand much English. Chris remembers him having an "air of malice."
"The fact that he was hiding the gun from me, like he wasn't trying to scare me, like he was trying to get me to go there. I would have preferred if he'd pointed the gun at me," Chris says.
Chris ran, and caught a lucky break when the man lost his footing. Even before his close call, Chris was concerned about the presence of hidden pot farms in the Sierra foothills. He says it even influences where he decides to do fieldwork.
That level of insecurity has not taken hold yet in the national parks. The chief ranger in Yosemite, Steve Shackelton, says he believes his staff is holding the line.
"People coming to Yosemite shouldn't fear this problem. Our job is to ensure that their visit is a safe visit, and we will ensure that. We do ensure that," he says.
At the same time, he's worried. In the national forest next to Yosemite, the pot farms have become almost commonplace. He has seen the effects over there — erosion, pesticides, garbage dumps — and he considers the pot farms a "fast-moving threat" to one of America's most beloved national parks.
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MICHELE NORRIS, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
And I'm Robert Siegel. We've heard a lot about Mexican cartels smuggling drugs into the U.S. Well, when it comes to marijuana, some Mexican crime families don't need to smuggle anything. Investigators say that a growing proportion of that marijuana is actually grown right here in the U.S.
And as NPR's Martin Kaste reports, it's usually grown on public land, even in national parks.
MARTIN KASTE: It's a gorgeous spring day in Yosemite and the tourists are jostling for that perfect shot of El Capitan. It's a pretty famous site down there. In fact, the exact same view is reproduced on the side of one of the rental RVs parked over by the guardrail. But the view is very different just a few miles away, deep in the ponderosa pine. There, two national park rangers are on what they call a creep - a stealthy patrol far off the regular trails. They're armed and they communicate with hand signals and the occasional whisper.
Mr. STEVE YU (Special Agent, National Park Service): What we'll do is we'll get back on the ridge. And we'll punch down this ridge down in the old site.
KASTE: Today, Special Agent Steve Yu wants to check out the site of an old pot farm that he helped raid a couple of summers ago. He steps gingerly over the dry branches and scans the ground for disturbances in the leaf litter or bits of garbage.
Mr. YU: We don't know if they've gone into that old site and if they're reusing that old site. So we always have to operate under the assumption that they're out here.
KASTE: An hour into the hike, the brush gets a lot thicker, making it impossible for the rangers to move quietly. But Steve Yu hasn't seen any sign of the growers so he relaxes a little and he tells the story of how he first found this pot farm.
Mr. YU: My partner and I were just glued with this boulder here and peeking our heads over the top. And, you know, we see movement up there. You know, at the time, there's a stress response so the visual distortion is part of that, so the heads that we saw moving around looked as big as pumpkins.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KASTE: The growers living up on that ridge had an elaborate campsite: tents, food, bags of fertilizer and a system of buried hoses piping in water from a creek a mile away in order to irrigate a crop of 7,000 marijuana plants. Steve Yu also assumed there were guns around. In his five years doing this kind of work, he's never seen a marijuana farm that didn't have evidence of firearms.
Mr. YU: Shotguns, .22s, .38s. I was in one site with a Glock semi-automatic pistol that had hollow-point bullets. That's the rounds designed to kill people.
KASTE: So on that particular day, Yu and his partner backed off, opting to return to the campsite with reinforcements. That is the safer choice but the noise of a bigger raid also usually gives the growers enough warning to slip away. That is, of course, the whole point of growing pot on public land: it's easy to cut and run.
Backcountry marijuana farms are nothing new. Last year, law enforcement confiscated a record five million plants just in California, mostly on public land. But it's not just any public land anymore. More and more of these farms are pushing into pristine settings, like the national parks. The latest park to join the list is North Cascades way up on the Canadian border. And it's becoming increasingly clear to investigators that many of these farms are part of something bigger.
Unidentified Man (Drug Enforcement Administration): We had arrests in Tennessee, Montana, Washington, Oregon and California; it was a spread-out organization.
KASTE: This DEA agent, anonymous here because he works undercover, is talking about a single Mexican crime family called the Barragans. He says he and other agents watched as the Barragans traveled up and down the West Coast scouting locations to establish new pot farms.
Unidentified Man: They had a plan in place. They had stash houses. They had living places for people. And they had people whose roles was just to provide food. Each person had, I guess, their own little skill set that they applied to the job. And then the leaders never got their hands dirty.
KASTE: Some of the Barragans are now in federal custody near Seattle awaiting trial. The DEA special agent in charge, Arnold Moorin, believes that these are just the middle managers. The real bosses, he says, live south of the border.
Mr. ARNOLD MOORIN (Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration): It's all controlled by the Mexican cartels in Mexico, where the command and control sits.
KASTE: But other DEA officials are more cautious about using that word, cartel. Investigators in California say while it is clear that there are Mexican citizens in the country who are running pot farm networks, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're connected to Mexico's bloody drug gangs. That's especially true of the guys who are out in the woods doing the grunt work.
Mr. TIM ZINDEL (Public Defender): Most of them are poor people from large families in Michoacán.
KASTE: Tim Zindel, a federal public defender, has represented a lot of them. He calls them disposable workers, campesinos who sometimes barely even know where they are.
Mr. ZINDEL: In some cases, my clients have been adamant that they were offered work without it being specified what was done. In others, people have said, I knew what I was going to do when I got here. A lot of times, the clients are just recruited on the streets of the local towns.
KASTE: Hardly the image of hardened cartel gangsters. Still, their growing presence in the backwoods is intimidating to people who have to spend time there. People like Chris, a grad student who asked us not to share his last name. In 2007, while he was doing field work in California's Plumas National Forest, he happened across a hidden irrigation hose. He looked up and saw an armed man heading his way.
CHRIS (Graduate Student): He had the gun held at his side and he says, come here.
KASTE: Chris quickly said that he didn't care what the hose was for. But it became clear that the man didn't actually speak English. He did have what Chris remembers as an air of malice.
CHRIS: The fact that he was like, hiding the gun from me, it was like he wasn't trying to scare me. He was like trying to get me to go there. I would have preferred if he'd, like, pointed the gun at me.
KASTE: So Chris ran and he got away. He's heard similar stories from other people who also spend time in the Sierra foothills. And his concern about the pot farms has reached the point where it even influences where he does his fieldwork.
Back in Yosemite, Chief Ranger Steve Shackelton wants to make sure that that sense of insecurity does not take root in the national parks. So far, he says, the parks are holding the line.
Mr. STEVE SHACKELTON (Chief Ranger, Yosemite National Park): People coming to Yosemite shouldn't fear this problem. Our job is to ensure that their visit is a safe visit, and we will ensure that. We do ensure that.
KASTE: But he admits he's worried. From the picnic bench where he's sitting, Shackelton can see over the park border into the neighboring national forest, where the pot farms are more common. Over there, just a few miles away, it's guns, garbage and pesticides - a scene Shackelton does not want to see repeated here in Yosemite National Park.
Martin Kaste, NPR News.
SIEGEL: At our Web site, you can see photos of the debris and equipment that pot farmers have left behind in Yosemite. You can also watch a short video about a former marijuana cultivation site, that's at npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
