The Pot Farms of Sequoia

By Benito Ortiz, Pacific News Service. Posted March 1, 2005.

This piece was translated by Miguel A. Bez and Monica Monroe, and originally appeared in Noticero Semanal.

Sequoia National Park authorities have found at least 40 marijuana fields in the last two years. Last year, five undocumented Mexican immigrants were arrested in one of the fields, according to a National Park Service investigator who did not want to be identified.

"About 95 percent of the people who grow marijuana in this park are illegal aliens," the agent said. "The illegals just work in the fields but the people who really run them are first- and second-generation Mexican Americans who recruit these illegals, promising them $15,000 cash and sometimes more to grow marijuana for just four months," he said.

These undocumented immigrants are among a group of unemployed day laborers who can be found outside large hardware and construction stores in the San Joaquin Valley, waiting for someone to hire them for a day's work. Many of them used to work in the fields of the Central Valley.

"Some of them don't even know they were hired to grow marijuana until they get to the park," the agent said.

But the land owners don't keep their promises to the field workers. Many undocumented farmhands never see their money, either because they get arrested before getting paid or because their bosses disappear with all the drugs, the agent said.

Nearly all the marijuana that has been found and confiscated was grown near rivers or streams on the hillsides. Between 10,000 to 20,000 marijuana plants are grown on each field, whose average size is about one acre. Walking through these areas is difficult because of the roughness and inaccessibility of the land. The vast vegetation of pine trees, oak trees, bushes and other plants provide these fields with shade and protection. This makes the authorities' job harder. Even with the use of helicopters, finding marijuana fields in the Sequoia National Park is not easy.

How Growers Operate

Growing marijuana in the Sequoia National Park has become a highly sophisticated process.

"Obviously there are more people behind this and they are the ones that pay for all of this," the agent said. "We have learned that the people in charge have connections with cartels in Mexico. These cartels send highly trained people to teach the undocumented immigrants how to grow marijuana, and how to find the perfect area for the fields," he added.

The irrigation system in nearly all the fields is sophisticated; a drip system provides water to each plant through a hidden underground irrigation pipes installed in rivers, or under running water coming from the mountains. Water is pumped uphill through pipes that are activated by solar timers.

"They start growing marijuana between March and April," said Richard Thiel, one of the park's employees.

The undocumented immigrants recruited to grow marijuana live in the fields during the four months it takes the plants to grow.

"They live in tents and have drinking water and bathrooms," the agent said. "Besides the workers, there are also one or two armed men," said the agent. These guards don't work in the fields; they just watch the workers to make sure they don't run away and watch for outsiders.

"Every ten days people come to bring them food, fertilizers and pesticides," said the agent said. Sometimes the suppliers don't come for many days and the workers have to go for days without eating. Many of the people who bring supplies to them are women with children, probably to deter the authorities, according to the investigator.

"But these women, knowing that what they are doing is wrong, ignore the fact that they could also be arrested, in addition to having their car confiscated and their children taken away," the investigator said.