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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2021
‘Blatant theft of water’
Illegal pot farms take West’s scarce water
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
LA PINE — Jack Dwyer
pursued a dream of getting
back to the land by mov-
ing in 1972 to an idyllic,
tree-studded parcel in Ore-
gon with a creek running
through it.
“We were going to grow
our own food. We were
going to live righteously.
We were going to grow
organic,” Dwyer said. Over
the decades that followed, he
and his family did just that.
But now, Deer Creek has
run dry after several illegal
marijuana grows cropped
up in the neighborhood
last spring, stealing water
from both the stream and
nearby aquifers and throw-
ing Dwyer’s future in doubt.
From dusty towns to for-
ests in the U.S. West, illegal
marijuana growers are tak-
ing water in uncontrolled
amounts when there often
isn’t enough to go around
for even licensed users.
Confl icts about water have
long existed, but illegal mar-
ijuana farms — which pro-
liferate despite legalization
in many Western states —
are adding strain during a
severe drought.
In California, which
legalized recreational mari-
juana in 2016, there are still
more illegal cannabis farms
than licensed ones, accord-
ing to the Cannabis Research
Center at the University of
California, Berkeley.
“Because peak water
demand for cannabis occurs
in the dry season, when
streamfl ow is at its low-
est levels, even small diver-
sions can dry streams and
harm aquatic plants and ani-
mals,” a study from the cen-
ter said.
Some jurisdictions are
fi ghting back. California’s
Siskiyou County Board of
Supervisors in May banned
trucks carrying 100 gallons
or more of water from using
roads leading to arid tracts
where some 2,000 illegal
marijuana grows were pur-
portedly using millions of
gallons of water daily.
The illegal grows are
“depleting precious ground-
water and surface water
resources” and jeopardiz-
ing agricultural, recreational
and residential water use,
the county ordinance says.
In Oregon, the number
of illegal grows appears
to have increased recently
as the Pacifi c Northwest
endured its driest spring
since 1924.
Many are operating under
the guise of being hemp
farms, legalized nationally
under the 2018 Farm Bill,
said Mark Pettinger, spokes-
man for the Oregon Liquor
and Cannabis Commission.
Under the law, hemp’s max-
imum THC content — the
compound that gives can-
nabis its high — must be no
greater than 0.3%. Fibers
of the hemp plant are used
in making rope, clothing,
paper and other products.
Josephine County Sher-
iff Dave Daniel believes
there are hundreds of ille-
gal grows in his southern
Carol Valentine
Jack Dwyer stands on the dry creek bed of Deer Creek in Selma.
Oregon county alone, many
fi nanced by overseas money.
He believes the fi nanciers
expect to lose a few grows
but the sheer number of
them means many will last
until the marijuana is har-
vested and sold on the black
market outside Oregon.
None of the new sites has
been licensed to grow rec-
reational marijuana, Pet-
tinger said. Regulators, con-
fronted in 2019 by a backlog
of license applications and a
glut of regulated marijuana,
stopped processing new
applications until January
2022.
The illegal grows have
had “catastrophic” conse-
quences for natural water
resources, Daniel said. Sev-
eral creeks have dried up far
earlier than normal and the
water table — the under-
ground boundary between
water-saturated soil and
unsaturated soil — is
dropping.
“It’s just blatant theft of
water,” Daniel said.
Last month, Daniel and
his deputies, reinforced by
other law enforcement offi -
cers, destroyed 72,000 mari-
juana plants growing in 400
cheaply built greenhouses,
known as hoop houses.
The water for those plants
came through a makeshift,
illicit system of pumps and
hoses from the nearby Illi-
nois River, which belongs
to the Wild and Scenic Riv-
ers System, created by Con-
gress to preserve certain riv-
ers with outstanding natural,
cultural, and recreational
values.
Daniel said another ille-
gal grow that had 200,000
plants was drawing water
from Deer Creek using
pumps and pipes. He called
it “one of the most blatant
and ugly things I’ve seen.”
“They had actually dug
holes into the ground so
deep that Deer Creek had
dried up ... and they were
down into the water table,”
the sheriff said.
Dwyer has a water right
to Deer Creek, near the
community of Selma, that
allows him to grow crops.
The creek can run dry late
in the year sometimes, but
Dwyer has never seen it this
dry, much less this early in
the year.
The streambed is now an
avenue of rocks bordered by
brush and trees.
Over the decades, Dwyer
created an infrastructure
of buried water pipe, a
dozen spigots and an irri-
gation system connected to
the creek to grow vegeta-
bles and to protect his home
against wildfi res. He uses
an old well for household
water, but it’s unclear how
long that will last.
“I just don’t know what I
will do if I don’t have water,”
the 75-year-old retired mid-
dle school teacher said.
Marijuana has been
grown for decades in south-
ern Oregon, but the recent
explosion of huge ille-
gal grows has shocked
residents.
The Illinois Valley Soil
and Water Conservation
District, where Dwyer lives,
held two town halls about
the issue recently. Water
theft was the main concern,
said Christopher Hall, the
conservation district’s com-
munity organizer.
“The people of the Illi-
nois Valley are experiencing
an existential threat for the
fi rst time in local history,”
Hall said.
In the high desert of cen-
tral Oregon, illegal mari-
juana growers are also tap-
ping the water supply that’s
already so stressed that
many farmers, including
those who produce 60% of
the world’s carrot-seed sup-
ply, face a water shortage
this year.
On Sept. 2, Deschutes
County authorities raided a
30-acre property in Alfalfa,
just east of Bend. It had
49 greenhouses contain-
ing almost 10,000 mari-
juana plants and featured
a complex watering sys-
tem with several 15,000-
to 20,000-gallon cisterns.
Neighbors told detectives
the illegal grow has forced
them to drill a new well,
Sheriff Shane Nelson said.
The Bend area has expe-
rienced a population boom,
putting more demands on
the water supply. The ille-
gal grows are making things
worse.
In La Pine, south of Bend,
Rodger Jincks watched a
crew drill a new well on his
property. The fi rst sign that
his existing well was fail-
ing came when the pres-
sure dropped as he watered
his tiny front lawn. Driller
Shane Harris estimated the
water table is dropping 6
inches per year.
Sheriff ’s deputies last
November raided an illegal
grow a block away that had
500 marijuana plants.
Jincks’ neighbor, Jim
Hooper, worries that his
well might fail next. He
resents the illegal grows and
their uncontrolled used of
water.
“With the illegals, there’s
no tracking of it,” Hooper
said. “They’re just stealing
the water from the rest of us,
which is causing us to spend
thousands of dollars to drill
new wells deeper.”
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Shaun Hall/Grants Pass Daily Courier
Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel stands amid the debris of plastic hoop houses destroyed
by law enforcement, used to grow cannabis illegally, near Selma.
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