Last month, local officials in Northern California took a major enforcement action against cannabis growers for their environmentally unsound water practices, in a case that crystalizes some of the dilemmas facing the Golden State\u2019s newly legal cash-crop sector and its interactions with the water supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The current dilemmas boil down to this: As the state punishes cannabis growers in the Emerald Triangle for environmental degradation, it is simultaneously pursuing an aqueduct project in the Central Valley that environmental groups claim will cause ecological harm of massive proportions. This project stands to benefit the \u201cbig ag\u201d industry, which California\u2019s newly legal cannabis companies are increasingly participating in.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 19, a couple in Shasta County was slapped with a $150,000 fine for building an earthen dam on their property to facilitate their cannabis grow.\u00a0The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board\u00a0issued the fine<\/a>\u00a0against Kongkeo Khamvongsa and Alexandra Kensavath, who had previously been issued a clean-up and abatement order in June 2016. At a February hearing, the Regional Board determined that the couple failed to restore and maintain their property after inspectors found evidence of water-quality problems related to the \u201cdevelopment of the property for cannabis cultivation.\u201d Specifically, this meant\u00a0grading 2.6 acres and constructing an earthen dam without obtaining permits.\u00a0<\/p>\n The board found that these activities resulted in the potential discharge of waste into several streams on the property that are tributary to Fidler Creek and North Fork Cottonwood Creek, which ultimately join the Sacramento River. Both creeks provide salmon habitat. In addition to the fine, Khamvongsa and Kensavath were ordered to clean up the property.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cState and Regional Water Board staff and legal counsel, in conjunction with their colleagues at the Department of Fish and Wildlife, have gone to great lengths to hold Mr. Khamvongsa and Ms. Kensavath accountable for their actions,\u201d said Clint Snyder, assistant executive officer for the Central Valley Water Board, in a state press release.\u00a0<\/p>\n The water board also\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0they had issued a fine of $83,187 to Teng Vang of Sacramento for similar offenses at a grow site on another Shasta County property, the Sacramento Bee reports. Vang had similarly been notified nearly two years ago by inspectors of water quality problems at his site, including grading and building of stream crossings and access roads without the necessary permits \u2014 similarly resulting in sediment discharges. These discharges posed a risk to tributaries of North Fork Cottonwood Creek and Ducket Creek, which both support salmon, according to the Regional Board.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ironically, the enforcement action in Shasta County came within days of the\u00a0announcement<\/a>\u00a0by California\u2019s new Gov. Gavin Newsom of his plan to revive the controversial multi-billion dollar \u201cTwin Tunnels\u201d project, which would divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to the Central Valley and Southern California, for both agribusiness and municipal use.<\/p>\n The mega-project had been dealt a\u00a0setback<\/a>\u00a0in December, when the\u00a0California Department of Water Resources<\/a>\u00a0withdrew its petition seeking approval of the plan, which had been developed by outgoing governor Jerry Brown. Newsom now says he\u00a0wants to downsize\u00a0the project in response to environmental concerns, possibly limiting it to one tunnel.<\/p>\n Formally known as\u00a0California Waterfix<\/a>, the project is actually being pushed as an environmental remediation measure,\u00a0intended in part to reduce<\/a>\u00a0the impacts that massive pumps at the south end of the Delta currently have on Delta hydrology and ecosystems.<\/p>\n But the state\u2019s environmentalists aren\u2019t sold \u2014 to say the least. The\u00a0California Water Impact Network<\/a>\u00a0states: \u201cBy any objective analysis, the Twin Tunnels pose a dire threat to the Delta\u2019s fisheries. The project would shunt high-quality Sacramento River water under the Delta to the south, leaving the estuary with disproportionate flows of heavily polluted water from the San Joaquin River. These reduced flows and higher contaminant levels of pesticides, herbicides, arsenic, selenium and boron bode ill for the salmon, steelhead and numerous other species important to our commercial and recreational fisheries.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement notes that the San Joaquin is already designated as an \u201cimpaired water body\u201d by the\u00a0State Water Resources Control Board<\/a>\u00a0and the federal\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>, and asserts that\u00a0\u201cthe Twin Tunnels will only make this already bad situation worse.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Reducing flows into the Delta could also cause saltwater from San Francisco Bay to intrude eastward, resulting in increased salinity and posing a further threat to salmon and other imperiled fish species.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nor are ecologists appeased by Newsom\u2019s downsizing of the project. Writes environmental journalist Dan Bacher in\u00a0Daily Kos<\/a>: \u201cThe California Waterfix project, whether one or two tunnels, would divert water from the Sacramento River under the Delta to the state and federal water export facilities in the South Delta. The project would hasten the extinction of Sacramento River winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species, as well as imperil salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers.\u201d<\/p>\n The Klamath and its tributary the Trinity are two of the major rivers that drain Northern California\u2019s cannabis-growing\u00a0Emerald Triangle<\/a>, joining in Humboldt County to meet the Pacific. They\u2019re already degraded by mining and dams, as well as irresponsible marijuana cultivation practices. Since water is diverted from the Trinity through a tunnel across the mountains to the Sacramento (the only trans-basin water diversion in California), the Twin Tunnels could ultimately reduce flows on the Trinity and Klamath.<\/p>\n Cannabis \u2014 while still lagging behind rice, cotton and cattle \u2014 has a growing presence among Central Valley beneficiaries of the water diversion project. The small operations that were fined in Shasta County are also in the Central Valley, although on its northeast edge, just across the Coast Range from the Emerald Triangle and arguably within it. But it is the Valley\u2019s sprawling agribusiness holdings now being converted to cannabis that stand to share in the mammoth water-diversion infrastructure run by the Department of Water Resources and federal\u00a0Bureau of Reclamation<\/a>.<\/p>\n In October 2017, in anticipation of legalization taking effect the following New Year\u2019s Day, the State Water Resources Control Board\u00a0adopted<\/a>\u00a0a state-wide \u201ccannabis cultivation policy.\u201d The newly-established\u00a0Water Boards Cannabis Cultivation Program<\/a>\u00a0aims to mitigate impacts of discharges from the new industry \u201cto the greatest extent possible,\u201d a phrase that may imply more laxity for Big Bud than for the little guys.<\/p>\n It may also appear ominous that these controversies come as Gov. Newsom has announced plans to\u00a0send the state\u2019s National Guard<\/a>\u00a0north to join in the\u00a0crackdown<\/a>\u00a0on unlicensed cannabis growers, pulling them out of enforcement along the Mexican border. Newsom\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0troops will be \u201credeploying up north to go after all these illegal cannabis farms, many of which are run by the cartels that are devastating our pristine forests and increasingly themselves becoming fire hazards.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There are indeed serious\u00a0ecological tolls<\/a>\u00a0taken by cannabis cultivation, whether legal or illegal. But if there is a double standard in enforcement, it could become a tool to establish the power of agribusiness over the industry, and help push out the mom-and-pop competitors \u2014 even if not wittingly.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think state laws tend to favor big cannabis corporations over small businesses?\u00a0<\/p>\n The post California\u2019s Water Wars & Cannabis: Will Small Growers Be the Losers?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Last month, local officials in Northern California took a major enforcement action against cannabis growers for their environmentally unsound water practices, in a case that crystalizes some of the dilemmas facing the Golden State\u2019s newly legal cash-crop sector and its interactions with the water supply.\u00a0 The current dilemmas boil downContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1980,50,8732,100,886,177,81,8733,762],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33306,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33305\/revisions\/33306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Department of Water Resources: A Bigger Threat to Salmon?\u00a0<\/h4>\n
Small Growers to Lose?\u00a0<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: California\u2019s Water Wars & Cannabis: Will Small Growers Be the Losers?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"