National Park Service rangers joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, California State Park Police, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) and the Mountains Recreation Conservation Authority on Tuesday in entering three marijuana plantation sites.[1] All three sites had been found by the Sheriff’s Department, which led the operation.[2]
Two of the sites were in Malibu Creek State Park and one was in the Zuma-Trancas Canyon area on National Park Service land.[2][1] Officers eradicated 3,509 plants in all, including 1,421 plants at Zuma Canyon, and removed garbage, PVC piping, camping equipment, fertilizer and chemicals.[2][1]
Public-land grows
One Zuma Canyon site sits in a wildlife corridor used by bobcats and mountain lions, and the Park Service says such plantations bring soil disturbance, pesticides, trash pits and illegal campfires with a high fire risk.[2] A year earlier, about 3,900 plants worth an estimated $10 million had been found on park land at Trancas Canyon, and the area’s largest seizure, about 28,000 plants at Malibu Creek State Park, dated to 2005.[2][1] Across California, 3,641,328 marijuana plants were seized on state and federal public lands in 2008.[2][1]
