National Parks and Forests at Critical Risk from Mexican Drug Cartels’ Occupation

Background

For some time now I have been writing about the invasion and occupation of our National Parks and National Forests in the Southwest. This is an armed invasion that essentially makes them “no go” zones for us citizens and law enforcement personnel.

As with everything about the invasion of America by Mexican drug cartels smuggling drugs and people, the capture of our National Parks and National Forests has gone national. It is probably beyond the will and the ability of the federal government to control or reverse. Americans may be close to losing safe access to our national conservation jewels—our National Parks and National Forests.

Documenting the Problems

Pristine US land turns toxic as remote pot sites proliferate source

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.

The pot-growing sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains to federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.

Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.

"What's going on on public lands is a crisis at every level," said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh. "These are America's most precious resources, and they are being devastated by an unprecedented commercial enterprise conducted by armed foreign nationals. It is a huge mess."
SNIP

Millions of dollars are spent every year to find and uproot marijuana-growing operations on state and federal lands, but U.S. officials say no money is budgeted to clean up the environmental mess left behind after helicopters carry off the plants. They are encouraged that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who last year secured funding for eradication, has inquired about the pollution problems.

In the meantime, the only cleanup is done by volunteers. On Tuesday, the non-profit High Sierra Trail Crew, founded to improve access to public lands, plans to take 30 people deep into the Sequoia National Forest to carry out miles of drip irrigation pipe, tons of garbage, volatile propane canisters, and bags and bottles of herbicides and pesticides.
SNIP
Scott Wanek, the Western regional chief ranger for the National Park Service, said he believes the eradication efforts have touched only a small portion of the marijuana farms and that the environmental impact is much greater than anyone knows.

"Think about Sequoia," Wanek said. "The impact goes well beyond the acreage planted. They create huge networks of trail systems, and the chemicals that get into watersheds are potentially very far-reaching — all the way to drinking water for the downstream communities. We are trying to study that now."

There are a few points made in the above excerpts and in previous analyses that the reader should notice.

1) Mexican drug cartels taking over National parks and National Forests is now a national problem, not just in the isolated National Forests of the Southwest. The federal government waited too long to enforce the law, now it is out of control.

2) The damage is not just environmental. It brings political corruption, crime, drugs, kidnapping, and murder to America in unprecedented abundance and ferocity.

3) The drug cartels haul their thousands of tons of marijuana out by helicopter—this is sophisticated organized crime on an unprecedented scale.

4) Our National Parks and National Forests are at risk of being lost to pollution, poaching, environmental degradation, and occupation by armed Mexican drug cartels. Some, such as the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona are severely damaged, occupied by Mexican invaders, and thus, permanently degraded/lost to America. Others, such as portions of the Coronado National Forest are officially marked as “no go” zones by the US Forest Service.

5) There is no reasonable expectation for any improvement. The policy of the US government (White House, majority of Congress, and thus, federal agencies such as DHS and the Border patrol) is to keep our southern border open. We have a national open borders policy. We do not have the fence we were promised and illegal immigration and smuggling are out of control. Both presidential candidates have sworn to support illegal immigration, open borders, and amnesty.