Two hikers in Samuel P. Taylor State Park this week spotted what looked like 20 marijuana plants, but a team of state rangers and two sheriff ’s deputies discovered about 1,000 when they went to investigate near an area called Crystal Springs, according to Lt. Doug Pittman, spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.
Forty percent of the plants had been harvested, hanging to dry below protective tarps. Because of the size of the operation, officers and rangers from the sheriff’s office California Highway Patrol, state parks and Point Reyes National Seashore, convened on the site and hand-carried the plants to a truck. They were driven to an undisclosed location and destroyed. (C.H.P. originally had a helicopter fly in to airlift the plants, but the remote location and tall trees precluded its use.)
No suspects have yet been identified. In addition to the plants, Lt. Pittman said that officers found “a variety of highly dangerous and toxic chemicals and pesticides… that contaminated both the land and water within the watershed, not to mention the hazardous threat to wildlife in the area.”
Bill Lutton, Marin sector superintendent of California State Parks, said that the park’s environmental scientists were working to prevent contamination and sediment runoff into Lagunitas Creek, which supports steelhead trout.
Lt. Pittman added that outdoor opera- tions on public lands, which growers use to avoid seizure of private property, have become less common, and smaller, in the past two or so years in Marin. A few years ago, the sheriff’s office was finding one or two grow sites a year with 10,000 or 20,000 plants, often along the Bolinas-Fairfax Ridge. But as a movement towards full legalization gains ground, growers are more comfortable housing indoor grows, he said.
Marin’s public lands remain alluring; unlike areas in California where water sources have run dry due to drought, some springs here remain fruitful. But the water doesn’t mean the officers found premium bud.
“Frankly, the plants we found in this grow were poor quality,” Lt. Pittman said. “People tend to [outdoor plants], but don’t oversee them with the type of care, although that’s kind of a funny word, for plants produced from indoor grows and the quality that they can produce.”