Recently the SCSO along with other task force members were doing raids and compliance checks in the Shasta Vista Area. The State of California was also conducting soil and water testing.

The levels of Carbofuran was high enough that the state workers immediately were alarmed for their safety.

LOCAL LEO!

Carbofuran toxicity

Due to its widespread use in agriculture, contamination of food, water, and air has become imminent, and consequently adverse health effects are inevitable in humans, animals, wildlife, and fish. Currently, carbofuran’s involvement is most frequently encountered in malicious poisoning.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7990167/

Carbofuran is classified as very toxic to bees, fish, and other water animals, and dangerous to wild game and birds (Collective SPA 2002). It is frequently involved in malicious poisoning of ani- mals as well as in human suicides (Gupta 1994; Ameno et al. 2001).

 * Exposure to Carbofuran can cause weakness, sweating, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, and blurred vision. Higher levels can cause muscle twitching, loss of coordination, and may cause breathing to stop. * Carbofuran may affect the nervous system. source: NJ.GOV/health

A 2018 article in the AP:  Nine of every 10 illegal marijuana farms raided in California this year contained traces of powerful and potentially lethal pesticides that are poisoning wildlife and could endanger water supplies, researchers and federal authorities said Tuesday.

https://apnews.com/6e7d27d687e9428381fa940ccdb0521b/Toxic-pesticides-found-at-most-illegal-California-pot-farms

TRINITY COUNTY, Calif. — If you buy weed illegally, you unwittingly could be supporting Mexican cartels and other criminal syndicates that lure workers to farms in Northern California and Southern Oregon, where they often suffer inhumane conditions and sometimes sexual abuse. Or worse.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2023/06/18/cartel-backed-pot-grows-linked-to-california-oregon-human-trafficking/70329795007/

Some disappear, presumed murdered, their bodies discarded within the area’s vast wilderness.

OPINION: Illegal marijuana growers pose threat to communities, ecosystems in the North State

Submitted by CA Assemblywoman Megan Dahle
published in Siskiyou Daily July 17, 2021
https://www.siskiyoudaily.com/story/opinion/2021/07/17/opinion-illegal-marijuana-growers-pose-threat-north-state/7998744002/

Thousands of acres of land in Siskiyou County have been overtaken by makeshift greenhouses and ramshackle infrastructure to support this organized crime. In the wake of the Lava Fire, which has burned nearly 30,000 acres in Siskiyou and forced the evacuation of many areas where illegal growers have taken root, law enforcement and residents’ worst fears have been realized.

The county has not adopted ordinances to allow for the legal sale and permitting of marijuana due to opposition from the local community. To be clear, all these grow sites are operating completely illegally. They are unpermitted, and workers are enduring squalid conditions, lacking even the most basic facilities like restrooms. As a result, large quantities of human waste are being dumped into the soil and polluting groundwater. And that isn’t even half of it.

These illegal grows are monopolizing precious ground and surface water resources, endangering legal agricultural and private water use by residents. Despite the public safety concerns, environmental degradation, and obvious undermining of the legal market in California, our state’s top leaders have failed to provide any real relief or partnership to local leaders. Rural county leaders and law enforcement have done everything they can, but the issue is far too big and additional resources are desperately needed.

A google news search finds this and other environments violations and safety concerns going back some 6 to 7 years and like the unhoused. Seams to be no end in site currently.

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