Mexican cartels poisoning US national parks through hidden pot growing operations
Will a threat to the environment get Democrats to care about border security? Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb weighs in.
Democrats need to get on board with tougher border security measures to combat Mexican drug cartels who are poisoning U.S. national parks, said Pinal County, Ariz. Sheriff Mark Lamb on "Fox & Friends First."
Lamb told host Heather Childers that drug and human traffickers coming over the U.S.-Mexico border have "total disregard for our country."
"It's not just those grow areas," said Lamb. "If you go all along the border, there's trash everywhere, abandoned stolen cars...clothes... We've got cattle down there that are choking on tuna cans. They just really do not care. It's all about getting their product here to America."
The "product," Lamb noted, is "human beings and drugs."
Mexican cartel members – who for years have carried out large-scale pot-growing operations in California national parks – are poisoning water and wildlife through the use of pesticides banned by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a report published Tuesday.
Two Mexican nationals and suspected cartel members were arrested in September during a raid on an illegal marijuana operation hidden beneath the thick tree canopies in California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Authorities found 8,656 growing marijuana plants and 232 pounds of processed marijuana, KQMS reported.
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About 3,000 pounds of trash, including discarded clothing, propane tanks and spent cans of insecticide, as well as three miles of plastic irrigation pipes and open bags of fertilizer, were also discovered at the site, suggesting the operation had been in use for years, National Public Radio reported.
According to the Crop Project, 2,000 illegal grow areas contaminate national forests.
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Lamb said that authorities are "going to need to do some massive rehabilitation" to areas where they find grow sites.
"I don't know where the environmentalists are," he told Childers. "Every time I take somebody out into our desert, they wonder the same thing. Where are the environmentalists?"
Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
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