Enviro groups push Forest Service to release pot maps
…There could be several plausible reasons the Forest Service didn’t produce the rumored maps: They aren’t official, they’re part of ongoing law enforcement investigations or they don’t exist. Or it could be that the maps — like the one Henson says he caught a brief glimpse of when it was offered by a Forest Service employee — are simply anecdotal information shared among staff members doing field work and then penciled onto the creased maps they carry in their back pockets.
Greacen suspects the Forest Service would simply rather the public not know how much it knows — or how little he says the agency does to prevent the grows. “The most obvious answer to me is they’re embarrassed,” he said. “They have failed in way too many instances to begin to address these legacy impacts.” …
Another disruption [to trespass grows], environmental groups claim, would be the removal of old forest roads, which they believe make it easier for growers to set up marijuana gardens in the wilderness.
Greacen said old roads facilitate all kinds of illegal activity on public lands. “When you keep unnecessary, failing roads open deep into wild country, logging almost inevitably follows,” he said. But because of pressure from advocates for road access, Greacen said, little is done to deconstruct those roads. “From our perspective it’s been clear the Forest Service wants to keep open many more miles of roads than it has money to maintain, or should maintain.”
Article by: Grant Scott-Goforth
Published by: The North Coast Journal
Published: July 10, 2014