Wild West: Drug cartels thrive in US national parks

Here in California, the biggest problems have been at Sequoia, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore. Officials say the accouterments of cannabis farming - black tubing, drip-irrigation techniques, terraced gardens, booby traps, look-out posts, and weapons - are so similar across the plots that the same organizations are probably at work. "Intelligence gathering ... up and down the state suggests these are the same groups expanding their operations into different areas," says Steve Prokop of Whiskeytown, near Mount Shasta.

Sequoia officials began concerted efforts to comb remote areas in 2001, when a fisherman reported meeting masked operatives toting automatic rifles. Since then, officials have discovered five camps and several acres of marijuana stalks, typically in areas with natural water sources. Last year, officials destroyed eight tons of crops and counted thousands of plants that had already been harvested - and they surmise that many other plots exist undetected. Eight Mexican nationals are due for trial in September.

For years, drug enforcement in national parks was focused on scouting out methamphetamine labs. Marijuana gardens were few in comparison and were rarely large-scale enterprises, according to Holly Bundock, chief NPS spokeswoman for California.

"We used to find smaller gardens every once in a while, but what is going on now is far more organized," says Al DeLaCruz, chief criminal investigator for Sequoia. "The impact [on] resources is very dramatic in terms of the refuse left behind; the damage to vegetation, soil, and water."

Besides clearing trees and brush to plant marijuana, growers often terrace the land, stirring up soil - and attracting plants that wouldn't otherwise take hold. Officials fear those exotic newcomers and the havoc they could wreak, reminiscent of an influx of star thistle on California ranch land that rendered millions of acres useless.

The diversion of water can also debilitate wildlife, especially in the dry season when many species come from far afield for summer's paltry trickles. Without water, animals will migrate elsewhere or die. And fertilizer in water is a major problem. When polluted runoff flows into lakes and streams, varying nitrate levels can kill fish species, launching a domino effect on the food chain.

"We have found evidence of insecticide contaminating groundwater, which can be devastating," says Colin Smith, a ranger at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Beyond agriculture's toll, there's the wear and tear of humans fending for themselves. DeLaCruz and others have found the remains of deer and bear that growers killed for food and of snakes and rodents they killed for sport.

To rangers, the most galling part of the story is that the National Park backcountry where marijuana is cultivated is designated wilderness by the 1964 Wilderness Act. Unlike the portions of national parks with campsites, roads, and restrooms, such areas are supposed to "retain their primeval character," preserve solitude, and keep man's imprint unnoticeable. Even rangers can't use saws or other motorized tools here. Regulations forbid clearing brush for campsites or fires, and guns are prohibited.

"Wilderness Designation is the highest possible protection for land under US law," says Ms. Bundock.

A hike through dense underbrush to the most accessible of the illicit camps gives a taste of how hard it is for growers to haul food and equipment. The sites are so remote, in fact, that harvests often must be helicoptered out.

Besides ammunition and guns, there are tents, cooking utensils, propane cylinders, and stacked 50-pound bags of fertilizer. Though a 10- to 15-foot canopy of dense trees conceals the camps' whereabouts, growers take the added precaution of camouflage tarping.

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