PRINEVILLE, OR -- A recent drug bust in Crook County highlights the risk illegal marijuan grow operations pose to the region’s water supply. Central Oregon Drug Enforcement (CODE) Sgt. Kent van der Kamp says illicit grows, like the one seized in Juniper Canyon last week, are often found in residential areas. "They’ll just take more than their share of water," he tells KBND News, "A marijuana farm or a marijuana indoor grow requires lots of water. And, they’ll usually just take an abundance of the water leaving nothing in the well or they’ll dry a well."
Sgt. van der Kamp says illicit operations are very different from legal pot farms who have rules to follow and often apply for water rights, "Hydroponic grows or indoor grows, they’re recycling the water so not using as much. But what we’ve seen with a lot of these cartel grows or really illicit grows is they don’t care. They show up, they devastate the land, they’re putting human waste in holes and covering them up, they’re just spraying every pesticide imaginable in every direction [and] insecticides and they’re not caring about the environment."
Sgt. van der Kamp says tips frequently come in from fed-up neighbors, which is how the Crook County grow was discovered, "Neighbors will call and complain and say 'hey. I have a marijuana grow next door to me. I don’t have an issue with marijuana, but now I can’t take a shower because I don’t have water.' Or, 'I can’t cook food because I don't have water. And they’ve now dried my well with their well'.”
Van der Kamp believes the problem is growing in Central Oregon as southern Oregon agencies crack down on cartel activity. On Wednesday, Jackson County officials seized 4,800 marijuana plants. "They put so much attention and enforcement action in Josephine and Jackson County the cartels are realizing, ‘hey, this is a bad plan. Let’s start breaking this up and going around to different parts of the state.’ So now what we’re seeing is the old game of Whack-A-Mole," says Sgt. van der Kamp, "They whack the mole over there and the mole is going to pop up somewhere over here." While Thursday's bust in Crook County is not directly linked to cartels, van der Kamp says the operation had a lot of similarities.
He also says these illegal grows are becoming more sophisticated and more dangerous as their Central Oregon footprint gets bigger, frequently setting up in residential or remote areas where they won't be noticed.
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