CENTRAL VALLEY SEEKS MILLIONS TO ERADICATE POT ON PUBLIC LAND

WASHINGTON - San Joaquin Valley residents sought reinforcements Thursday in
their fight against marijuana growing on public lands.

Some help may be on the way, but there's always a price.

"I really want to know if we have a war on drugs," Tulare County Supervisor
Allen Ishida told a House subcommittee. "I'm here for some of those assets
in that war."

Tulare County cares because it is home to Sequoia and Kings Canyon national
parks and Sequoia National Forest, which have been blossoming with illicit
marijuana plantations. Last year, sheriff's deputies seized 161,624 live
pot plants in the county, with 87 percent of that being uprooted from
federal land.

Yosemite National Park and environs have likewise drawn in Mexican drug
cartels, law enforcement officers advised the House national parks
subcommittee. Last year, some 10,000 Yosemite-area pot plants were torn
out. It's a serious enough Sierra Nevada problem that the park service
stations three special agents at Yosemite, and another at Sequoia, to
augment park law enforcement.

Local authorities, their forces stretched thin, want more. On Thursday,
Ishida proposed federal backing for a $5.5 million task force, to be
staffed with state, local and federal officials. He also urged better
coordination among law enforcement agencies, and the prosecution of more
drug suspects in federal rather than state courts.

"I think they're doing the best they can, given the limited resources they
have," said Fresno resident Laura Whitehouse, Central Valley program
manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Still, Whitehouse joined Ishida in urging "more resources" for the parks'
efforts, including "increased backcountry patrols and helicopter time" to
search out the hidden marijuana groves. Marijuana growers have become
sneakier, she told the House national parks subcommittee, as large
rectangular plots have been replaced by plants hidden along the contours of
the terrain.

The departure of National Guard helicopters that used to search for Sierra
Nevada pot, but which now fly border-watching missions out of Arizona, has
aggravated the problem. Whitehouse suggested this could help explain why
the number of marijuana plants seized in Sequoia National Park fell from
44,000 last year to 1,351 so far this year.

The Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, which goes after both public and
private lands, eradicated 1.1 million plants this year, compared with
621,000 plants last year.

"This is one of those issues that doesn't go away, and continues to get
worse," Tulare Republican Devin Nunes said.

The only California lawmaker to sit through the hourlong hearing, Nunes
used part of his time to question whether "extremist" environmental groups
were hindering park service enforcement efforts.

Whitehouse and the park service's associate director for visitor and
resource protection, Karen Taylor-Goodrich, denied there was any such problem.

Park service officials also cautioned that simply boosting budgets may not
go far enough.

"You can't always just throw money at a problem and expect it to be
solved," said Donald Coelho, the National Park Service's chief of law
enforcement. "Sometimes, it just takes time."

Coelho knows the problem well, having served as chief law enforcement
ranger at Yosemite in the late 1990s. Now, he helps oversee the park
service's $167 million annual law enforcement and resource protection
budget. This year, an additional $764,000 is being kicked in to help with
marijuana eradication in California parks.

Last year, the park service spent about $600,000 to combat drugs in the
agency's Pacific West Region, which includes all of the California parks.
Whitehouse admitted it was a tough choice between spending more on park
conservation or marijuana eradication.

Other short-term options on the table include commissioning a new park
service study that would assess the national problem and the need for new
resources, and spell out a multiyear plan. Mariposa Republican George
Radanovich and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., urged the park service
earlier this year to undertake such a study.