Federal, state and local law enforcement eradicated more than 578,000 cannabis plants from public lands in seven western states in Operation Mountain Sweep, an eight-week effort that began on 1 July 2012.[1][2] The operation targeted large-scale illegal grows in California, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington, and the Drug Enforcement Administration put the street value of the destroyed plants at more than $1 billion.[1][2] Officers also hauled out large amounts of trash, irrigation line, fertilizer and pesticides from the grow sites.[1]
In California alone, officers worked 96 grow sites and 28 suspects were indicted on federal charges.[2] In Idaho, officers removed an estimated 11,100 plants near Galena Summit in the Sawtooth National Forest after members of the public reported the grow, and had earlier taken 42,290 plants in Caribou County and more across Jerome County, for an Idaho total above 47,744 plants since 1 July.[1] U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson said Idaho’s public lands were off limits to drug traffickers, while DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart said trafficking groups were turning parks and public lands into drug havens.[1]
Why public lands
The authorities said growers cleared native vegetation, cut trees for sunlight and diverted streams, leaving damage that outlasts the harvest, and that armed growers living at the sites posed a safety threat to the public.[1][2] U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner called the grows both a public-safety and an environmental threat.[2]
