After Hacker Creek
Furthermore, though he used to produce a pound of marijuana per light, the most recent fad is for a purple strain that is difficult to raise. “I think the buyers sit around and come up with the worst possible plant, with the least yield and the hardest to grow,” he complains. Now he is only able to get a half a pound per light and his profits are down.
Even before the Hacker Creek spill, though, Max worried about more than his profits. “I’ve never been a bad guy before,” he says as he contemplates information about how diesel affects the environment. He worries about how his neighbors perceive him. “The worse thing is, everything they say, I can’t argue with.” Concerned with health and environmental issues much of his life, Max finds his reliance on growing indoor marijuana at odds with his ideals.
Max’s individual plight echoes through the community around him. Many people moved here to live closer to the Earth. They began growing a little marijuana— first for private use and, eventually, to supplement their incomes. Then CAMP began a huge push in the late ’80s and much of the ’90s. Many growers moved indoors to hide their activities from law enforcement without considering possible environmental side effects. As indoor marijuana production rose and buyers began to prefer the consistency and intensity, outdoor marijuana became a sad second — worth about half its hothouse-raised cousin.
In spite of concerns about the environment, the rising costs, and increased pressure from mounting fines and prison sentences, Max doesn’t want to give up his indoor grow. He and his wife use it medicinally, and he needs the income. Concerns about the environment worry him the most. Nevertheless, he still believes that indoor marijuana reduces his environmental footprint better than conventional drugs. “You know, Vicodin comes shipped in a boat all the way from China. It’s medicine. But, we’re making organic medicine locally.”
Many in the community are less sanguine though. A group of Salmon Creek residents were already meeting to discuss the effects of diesel farming on the environment when the Hacker Creek spill occurred. The movement soon spread to the greater Southern Humboldt Community. When 40 to 50 locals met in Garberville’s largest gathering space, the local community-run radio station, KMUD, devoted a call-in show the next morning to the subject and both the local newspapers carried stories.
Hardy Church, one of the founders of the anti-diesel movement, claims Northern California’s economic interconnection with diesel-powered grow scenes is unhealthy. “It makes some people richer but it makes people in the watersheds poorer because of the adverse health effects.” He believes that “neighbors around here seem to be locked into a bad habit … Moms and Pops are struggling to sell beautiful organic non-polluting pot because diesel dopers are inundating the market with crap.” Church worries not only about fuel spills but about the damage large diesel trucks do to fragile dirt roads. “There are no taxes coming from [large fuel companies] to pay for the dirt roads.” Dirt roads in rural hills are maintained by the users, but he believes that fuel trucks do more damage than the diesel users pay for.
He also expressed concern about improperly wired grow rooms catching fire, especially during the summer season. “The fire danger scares the shit out of me,” he says. “I’m expending more energy trying to prepare my curtilage for accidents … I had to rescue my neighbor when his truck and two tanks of diesel were about to roll down the hill and into the water.” According to Church, the cost of growing indoors is borne by the community while the grower reaps the profits and the land is “raped.”
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Label GMOs Signature Gathering Training
meetings / 4 p.m. Sun Yi's Academy of Tae Kwon Do, 1215 Giuntoli Lane, Arcata. Help gather valid signatures to get the 'California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act' on the 2012 ballot. E-mail northernhumboldtlabelgmos@hotmail.com. 223-0424.
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Nonviolence Action Camp
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11 Comments
Comment / By Ernie Branscomb / Oct. 2, 2008, 3:52 p.m.
Wow, the NCJ went from yellow journalism, (Pistol Packing People, Heidi Walters) to real journalism in less than one week. Nice work.
Kym Kemp really nailed the need for environmental reform in the article that she wrote on diesel fuel spills. The article was very descriptive of the wide range of people and critters that were effected. Kym made me want to do something more about taking care of this river canyon that I love, even more than before. I can put up with people that don’t see things my way, but I can’t tolerate this kind of destructiveness.
I hope you can get her to do more writing for you. Nice work Kym! Ernie
Comment / By Ben Schill / Oct. 2, 2008, 10:06 p.m.
The buried oil problem is going to haunt us in the future. Kym Kemp has done a fine job on this article.
Comment / By Mike Goldsby / Oct. 3, 2008, 12:22 p.m.
This was a pleasure to read: Well written on an important topic. Thanks
Comment / By Not A Native / Oct. 4, 2008, 6:48 p.m.
I feel very sad for Barbara. She is committed to being non-judgemental and tolerant but her neighbors are abusing her good will and subjecting her to torment. She’s torn. Like a Sunni Iraqi in an Al-Qaeda area, she’s caught up in loyalty to her group, even as they blow up citizens. Her neighbors destroy the environment in the name of independence and freedom but actually for greed.
I have little sympathy for “Max”. Gotta grow pot for his medicine? Guess that justifies all the inner city ghetto drug dealers and pimps who do it to support their families. Thats the same excuse employers of illegal aliens at substandard wages use too, and similarly for politicians who take bribes. Everybody’s got to live, does that justify everyone seeking illegal money?
And tell me, if Max is so disabled and using a walker, who is planting and maintaining those gardens, contacting the customers, and bringing the product to market? There’s a lot of physical work in farming, Max’s role seems to be only the land owner and profit collector. Max is a criminal, plain and simple, whether he wants to admit it to the mirror or not.
If he grew for his own use or sold it at cost, that would be different. As it is, he’s growing only so he can get illegal profits, not as an act of conscience or civil disobience to protest unjust laws.
Comment / By anonymous / Oct. 6, 2008, 7:07 p.m.
Why cant folks just switch over to propane generators……propane is cheaper, and turns to a gas and rises into the air if it leaks……no fouling streams.
Jesus h christ it isn’t rocket science.
Comment / By love godess / Oct. 7, 2008, 12:40 p.m.
Message to not a native. Lets see either the government or max is going to pay the medical bills. Wouldnt you rather see him trying to pay his own way or would you rather have your tax dollars supporting him? At least Max is being cautious about his grow. Also do you really care that much as to how he is able to garden. You obviously waste alot of your time worry about petty things and need to get your own life and keep busy so you are not concerned as to how someone farms their garden. I also do not see a correlation between crack, tweek, or coke dealers to that of a marijuana grow. Those sort of drugs have nothing in common to that of a grow farm as long as precautions are taken place and not harming the environment
Comment / By Not A Native / Oct. 7, 2008, 5:07 p.m.
love godess. Funny isn’t it? You don’t even mention or have any sympathy for the pain Barbara experiences due to marijuana growing in her neighborhood. Would you tell her she should move or suck it up?
Many people have medical bills and needs but don’t take up criminal activities. If Max can’t pay, he’s old enough for medicare and if he’s poor enough he gan get medi-CAL. All of which I’m happy to help support as a social good, as opposed to the underground illicit marijuana trade. Max grows indoor to make the biggest buck and thats a pure profit motive.
You need to get your head out of your a and face up to the harm that he’s doing, and the harm criminality does to children who grow up around it, and the real environmental damage thats caused by it.
Get real, growers don’t take precautions. Reread the article about the “Harsh Reality”. They don’t give a hoot about the environment as long as they can intimidate their neighbors into hushing up. Like Barbara is being forced to. Growers create a climate of fear, secrecy, dishonesty and denial. Just like a dysfunctional family. How can that ever be a good thing for the community?
Comment / By Jeff Muskrat / Oct. 8, 2008, 5:58 p.m.
Nothing beats some good sun-powered outdoor organic ganja, grown with love and not greed.
Comment / By towelly the dread head / Oct. 11, 2008, 10:13 a.m.
i agree with mr muskrat. solar powered is the way to go. ‘max’ needs to get off the purple and go with some sour diesel or cherry AK if he wants some yield, and maybe once thats worked out he can afford to put in a solar powered compact flourescent veg room and quit paying for clones..
make the world a better place , one plant at a time
thanks NCJ for a really decent piece of journalism…
i assume its ok to use noisy polluting diesel generators for large scale construction projects and other asset creating endeavors with marginal benefit to the general public??
just not dope, nope
Comment / By Fancy Nancy / Dec. 25, 2008, 10:23 a.m.
Max talks about prescription drugs being shipped from China compared to diesel dope ,really they are very similar. The diesel does not originate here either. The sun however is local, organic and free! Max also says he is producing an organic product. How could that be if it’s grown under artificial lights that are powered by diesel?
Comment / By humboldtbambee / Jan. 12, 2009, 3:51 p.m.
There has to be a way to do anything without making a mess. In Oakland they have Oaksterdom—classes which help medical marijuana get to patients. We can grow mm without killing critters, causing a spill or burning down a Historic home in Arcata. We are not that stupid.