The Brief

Law enforcement raided the illegal cannabis operation in Shasta-Trinity National Forest months before, but rotting potatoes still sat on the growers’ makeshift kitchen worktop, waiting to be cooked.

Ecologist Greta Wengert stared down the pockmarked hillside at a pile of pesticide sprayers left behind, long after the raid. Wild animals had gnawed through the pressurized canisters, releasing the chemicals inside.

“They’re just these little death bombs, waiting for any wildlife that is going to investigate,” said Wengert, co-founder of the Integral Ecology Research Center, a nonprofit that studies the harms caused by cannabis grows on public lands. For all her stoic professionalism, she sounded a little sad.

For over a decade, Wengert and her colleagues have warned that illegal cannabis grows like this one dangerously pollute California’s public lands and pristine watersheds, with lasting consequences for ecosystems, water and wildlife.

Now, they’re sounding another alarm — that inadequate federal funding, disjointed communication, dangerous conditions and agencies stretched thin at both the state and federal level are leaving thousands of grow sites — and their trash, pesticides, fertilizers and more — to foul California’s forests.

Dozens of fertilizer bags wept blue fluid onto the forest floor. Irrigation tubes snaked across the craters of empty plant holes. The cold stillness felt temporary — as if the growers would return at any moment to prop up the crumpled tents, replant their crop and fling more beer cans and dirty underwear into the woods.

Wengert has tallied nearly 7,000 abandoned sites like this one on California’s public lands.

Greta Wengert, co-founder and co-director of the Integral Ecology Research Center, leads a team documenting the chemicals and environmental damage caused by an illegal cannabis site in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

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Fred Greaves

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For CalMatters

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It’s almost certainly an underestimate, she said. Her team knows of only 587 that have been at least partly cleaned up.

No government agency can provide a comprehensive count; several referred CalMatters back to Wengert’s nonprofit for an unofficial tally.

Most of the sites Wengert’s team identified are in national forests, where “limited funding and a shortage of personnel trained to safely identify and remove hazardous materials” is driving a backlog in clean ups, a U.S. Forest Service spokesperson told CalMatters via an unsigned email.

The federal government, the spokesperson said, has dedicated no funding for the forest service to clean them up. And it’s leaving a mess in California.

A new playbook  

The federal government owns nearly half of the more than 100 million acres in California. But it’s California’s agencies and lawmakers taking the lead on tackling the environmental harms of illegal grows — even as the problem sprawls across state, federal and privately managed lands.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s policy is to clean up all grows spotted on its 1.1 million acres of wildlife areas, ecological reserves, and other properties, officials say.

Staff assist with clean ups on federal lands “when asked,” said cannabis program director Amelia Wright — typically on California’s dime. But, she said, “That’s not our mandate.”

Fees and taxes on California’s legalized cannabis market fuel state efforts — supporting the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s cannabis program and funding tens of millions of dollars in grants for rehabilitating places damaged by cultivation. These grants can cover clean-ups and sustainable cultivation projects, or even related efforts like fish conservation.

The department has helped remove almost 350,000 pounds of trash and more than 920 pesticide containers from grows on public lands over nearly a decade.

An aerial view of Post Mountain, where cannabis is grown on private land near the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

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Fred Greaves

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For CalMatters

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But former Assemblymember Jim Wood, a North Coast Democrat, said that as he prepared to leave office in 2024, progress on cleanups was still too slow.

“It doesn't reflect what I see is the urgency to watersheds, and the water and the people that are served by them,” he said.

In 2024, lawmakers passed Wood’s bill directing the Fish and Wildlife department to conduct a study to inform a statewide cleanup strategy for cannabis grows. The law requires the department to provide regular reports to the legislature about illegal cultivation and restoration efforts on lands both public and private.

To Wright, that’s a path forward, however prospective it may be.

“It just feels like such redemption right now for many of us,” Wright said. “It's a one of a kind program. So we didn't have a playbook — we're still creating it.”

But the study, which Wengert’s organization is conducting on the state’s behalf, isn’t due until next year. Meanwhile, the bloom of illicit pot grows on private land has been demanding California's attention, a growing problem since voters legalized cannabis in 2016.

“It's like whack-a-mole. They pop up in a new location, and then we have to go there — but the impacts are occurring across the landscape,” said Scott Bauer, an environmental program manager with the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s cannabis office.

The California Department of Justice told CalMatters it recently identified a “substantial increase of illicit cannabis cultivations on or adjacent to public lands.” Of the 605 sites where a multi-agency state and federal task force ripped out illicit cannabis plants, roughly 9% were on public lands — up from an average of 3 to 4%.

“Everybody thought with legalization that a lot of these problems would go away,” said Wood, the former assembly member.

But, he added, the sites remain. “It’s a ticking environmental time bomb.”

And the contamination, new research confirms, lingers.

‘This site will sit on this landscape’

On a cold November morning, down one dirt road and up another, ecologist Mourad Gabriel led a safety briefing at the grow site in Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

Gabriel, who previously spearheaded a U.S. Forest Service effort tackling trespass grows on public lands, co-founded the research center with Wengert and now co-directs it with her. He’s also her spouse and a foil to her calm watchfulness — dismayed by the state of the forest one moment and bounding off to investigate an interesting mushroom or animal scat the next.

“Please don't push the red shiny buttons, or lick the big pink things,” Gabriel joked at the mouth of a well-worn path growers had carved into the woods. (Carbofuran, a dangerous and illegal pesticide often found on grow sites, is bright pink.)

The team, Gabriel explained, wasn’t there to clean up the grow. They didn’t have the money for that. Instead, he said, shouldering his backpack and strapping on a first aid kit, they were there to document the contaminants as part of a U.S. Forest Service-funded investigation into wildlife around cultivation sites.

“This site will sit on this landscape until someone acquires some level of funding,” Gabriel said. “And no one can really push it, until we actually get that data.”

Jenna Hatfield, a member of Wengert’s team, takes notes at the grow site.

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Fred Greaves

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For CalMatters

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Wengert and Gabriel have spent years collecting data at grow sites like this one. They’ve found carcasses of creatures so poisoned even the flies feeding on them died, and detected dangerous pesticides in nearby creeks more than a year after raids.

In recent work they published with scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the team found that illegal grows pulsed pollutants from plastic, painkillers, personal care products, pot and pesticides into the soil that could be detected months or even years later. Some contaminants also showed up in nearby streams.

The pollutants diminished over time — absorbed into the landscape and washed into waterways. By the time the researchers tested for them, the concentrations had declined to levels lower than those found in agricultural soils.

But, they point out, remote habitats and sensitive headwaters are not where these chemicals are supposed to be. Past a marshy flat cratered with holes and piled with poison-green insecticide bags, Gabriel, Wengert and ecologist Ivan Medel trailed an armed U.S. Forest Service officer to a massive trash heap cordoned off by barbed wire.

Medel wedged himself through the strands and handed empty fertilizer bags dripping blue liquid out to Gabriel.

Force-feeding waterways the excess nutrients in fertilizer can upend entire ecosystems and spur algae blooms. The site is in the greater South Fork Trinity River watershed — vital, undammed habitat for protected salmon and other fish species.

“That was pretty nasty,” Gabriel said, as one bag spilled liquid over his gloved hands. He counted up the haul. “Twelve bags right there.”

By day’s end, the team discovered enough empty bags and bottles to have held 2,150 pounds of fertilizer and more than 29 gallons of liquid concentrate. All of that, the growers had poured into the land.

A scientist walks through empty planting holes at the illegal cannabis site, where growers chopped away brush and laid irrigation lines.

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Fred Greaves

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For CalMatters

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A federal void

In 2018, a federal audit lambasted the U.S. Forest Service for failing to clean up — or even document — trespass grows in national forests.

The agency was finding and eradicating cannabis grows in national forests effectively. But its failure to consistently clean them up, the audit said, put “the public, wildlife, and environment at risk of contamination” and could allow growers to return more easily.

Little has changed. From 2020 through 2024, when Gabriel worked for the agency, a spokesperson said the Forest Service “prioritized reclaiming sites over investigating active grows.”

But the agency said it still has received too little funding and has too few personnel trained to work with often hazardous materials. And the backlog persists. How big it is, the Forest Service wouldn’t say. After declining an interview request and taking two months to reply to emailed inquiries, a spokesperson said CalMatters must submit a public records request.

The Forest Service now is shifting the responsibility for cleanups to individual forests. That, too, contributes to the backlog, the spokesperson said.

U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said he has tried repeatedly to direct more funding to cleaning up trespass grows on federal lands, but with little success in Congress.

“We have tried just about everything,” said Huffman. “It’s clearly not enough.”

Now, under the Trump administration, the Forest Service is even more understaffed. A spokesperson said while law enforcement staffing “has remained steady,” roughly 5,000 non-fire employees “have either offboarded or are in the process of doing so” through “multiple voluntary separation programs.”

Huffman put it more starkly. “They’ve been gutted,” he said. “The Forest Service right now has a sign on the door that says, ‘We're out of the office. We're not sure when we'll ever be back.’”

Mourad Gabriel, co-founder of the Integral Ecology Research Center, looks at a bottle found in the abandoned camp.

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Fred Greaves

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For CalMatters

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Cleaning it up

The Shasta-Trinity grow stretched for more than 6 acres through national forest land. Trash, and the smell of pot, were everywhere.

Law enforcement officers had removed the mouth of the irrigation tube diverting water from a nearby creek, but all the piping remained. It slithered over downed trees, past the craters of another abandoned grow to a waterfall where leaves and black tubing snarled in the rocks.

Gabriel clambered up the waterfall, where he discovered a sock and a plastic bottle with the top sliced off — a makeshift filter the growers used to keep the line clear of debris. He hung the bottle on a tree branch, like a ghoulish Christmas ornament.

Few organizations are qualified to do science-informed cleanups, and none work as widely as Wengert and Gabriel’s.

California’s Cannabis Restoration Grant Program is paying the team more than $5.3 million to conduct the legislatively mandated study on cleaning up grow sites, and also to train and support tribal teams and other organizations to do this work.

The study, and the training, include best practices for handling and disposing of hazardous waste, Gabriel said. More teams means more competition for the pot of state-allocated money, but he wants more allies in the fight.

“Until someone cleans it up, it stays out here,” Gabriel said from his perch in the waterfall, surrounded by a tangle of black irrigation pipes. He expected it could take years.

Wengert and Gabriel follow an irrigation pipe that leads to the water source growers used to water their cannabis crop.

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Fred Greaves

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For CalMatters

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But that’s not what happened.

Two weeks later, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife choppered away nearly 1,500 pounds of trash, 4,000 feet of irrigation pipe and 7 pesticide containers — restoring the rugged, remote forest.

The department had offered to help out the U.S. Forest Service and take the lead on the clean up, with its own helicopter, on its own budget, according to spokesperson Sarah Sol.

Months later, when Gabriel learned about it, he was shocked — and concerned. Sol said that Fish and Wildlife staff did not encounter any banned or restricted pesticides, and all had masks and nitrile gloves available to them.

But Gabriel’s team found residue in the pesticide sprayers on the hillside from a class of chemicals that includes banned and dangerous carbofuran. He worried that the cleanup team could have unknowingly put themselves and others at risk.

“There is a proper way to do it, and there is a cowboy way to do it,” Gabriel said.

It’s one site down — one patch of forest cleared. But thousands like it remain, littering California’s landscape.

Some government funding streams for L.A. County’s public health system are drying up, and officials are turning to private philanthropy to fill the gap.

A new privately funded foundation launched Thursday to strengthen public health services after $50 million in federal, state and local funding cuts to the county’s Department of Public Health since early last year.

“It is really a hard day for our community when we have to ask for private donations to fund a public good, but unfortunately, we've lost too much money to not take this important step,” said Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

In February, the county’s Public Health Department closed seven clinics, with six remaining open. About half of the patients seen in those clinics are uninsured, according to county officials. The department also cut hundreds of staff positions.

Ferrer is on the board of the new foundation, The Fund for Advancing Public Health LA, which held its first meeting Thursday.

She said the fund will help the county maintain its basic public health infrastructure, including disease prevention, health promotion, environmental health, and emergency response efforts.

Other board members include several health insurance executives, as well as actors Sean Penn and Danny Trejo. Board member Saree Kayne of the R&S Kayne Foundation pledged $150,000 to the fund Thursday. Kayne said she hopes the donation encourages others to give.

The foundation aims to raise $2 million this year.

More cuts expected

L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell said it’s crucial to have an alternative funding stream to protect services for the county's most vulnerable residents.

“We are saving public health,” Mitchell said. “This fund represents a new approach, one that brings together government philanthropy in the private sector to invest in community-based solutions, protect vulnerable populations, and strengthen our public health infrastructure.”

Officials say more public health cuts are coming, through the federal budget law known as the "Big Beautiful Bill," which slashes funding for Medi-Cal.

The county Department of Public Health anticipates losing up to $300 million in revenue over the next three years because of the federal budget bill and other potential funding freezes. Federal funding accounts for almost 50% of the public health budget, according to county officials.

Mitchell also led an effort to put a half-percent county sales tax increase to fund public health on the June ballot.

If approved by voters, that proposal, known as Measure ER, is expected to raise about $1 billion a year for county safety net health services, including about $100 million for the public health department.

Board members

The Fund for Advancing Public Health LA announced its founding board of directors, which includes:

• Dr. Barbara Ferrer, LA County Department of Public Health director
• Debbie I. Chang, Blue Shield of California Foundation CEO
• Sean Penn, actor and co-founder of Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE)
• Martha Santana-Chin, LA Care Health Plan CEO
• Saree Kayne, R&S Kayne Foundation CEO
• Danny Trejo, actor and restaurateur
• Jarrett Barrios, an executive at the American Red Cross
• Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Charles R. Drew University College of Medicine Dean
• Kristin McCowan, an executive at the Los Angeles Dodgers

The Rose Bowl in Pasadena may be a centenarian, but it’s holding up pretty well as it continues to host events on its way to a starring role in the LA28 Olympics.

But before it can host the soccer final, it needs fixes, especially to the infrastructure serving the bathrooms and drinking fountains. Fears of a toilet backup while in the world’s spotlight led Rep. Laura Friedman to seek federal funds for upgrades. On Thursday she announced she secured just over $1 million.

“Two years from now, athletes around the world are going to compete for gold right where we are standing. This is not the time to find out whether or not these pipes are up to the task,” Friedman said.

The planned work, she added, will lead to improved water flow capacity and water drainage, eliminating the risk of backups and emergency maintenance.

The funds came from the House of Representatives Interior and Environment subcommittee. The fixes, an official said, will be completed by the LA28 Olympics.

The funds, however, are a drop in the bucket when it comes to what’s needed to make needed improvements to the Pasadena venue.

Officials, including (left to right) Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation President Dedan Brozino, Deputy Fire Chief of the City of Pasadena Tim Sell, Congresswoman Laura Friedman, and Rose Bowl Stadium CEO Jens Weiden announced infrastructure funding for the 103-year old Rose Bowl.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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“Over the  next 20 years there's about $200 million that we need to put in and that's everything from updating light fixtures to updating gas, water, wastewater lines, etc.,” said Dedan Brozino,  president of the Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation, the nonprofit that supports the Rose Bowl stadium's preservation and enhancement.

Getting venues ready will be expensive

The money is a much-needed win at a time when elected officials in city, county, state and federal offices have been struggling to find the funds to get L.A.-area venues ready for the global Olympic stage in two years.

The entrance to a men's bathroom at the Rose Bowl.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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A $360 million proposal to spruce up asphalt in parking lots around Exposition Park won’t be done in time for the Olympics, as originally planned. Meanwhile, just up the street, there’s concern that a $2.6 billion expansion of the L.A. Convention Center, which is hosting Olympic wrestling, fencing and judo in 2028 won’t be ready for the Olympics.

Additionally, to save money, LA28 organizers moved Olympic diving to the Rose Bowl complex last year because it has two Olympic-sized pools, while the Exposition Park complex doesn't and would need expensive upgrades.

Topline:

About the chick: The chick hatched March 14. The zoo opened its Cape vulture enclosure in February 2025 after years of planning to encourage the birds to roost and nest, welcoming a new breeding pair that year. When it grows to be an adult, it’ll have a wingspan of 8 1/2 feet.

About the enclosure: The L.A. Zoo said it spent years developing the vulture habitat, which was designed to mimic the vultures’ natural environment in South Africa and nearby countries. Dominick Dorsa II, the zoo’s director of animal care, said in a statement the successful hatching is “a testament to the design and construction” of the habitat.

How to see the chick: You can’t for the time being. Zoo officials are keeping it away from visitors until the chick matures, though you can still see adult Cape vultures at the zoo’s enclosure.

Though visitors will have to wait until the chick matures to see it in the enclosure, you can still take in the impressive eight and a half foot wingspan of the adult Cape vultures.

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Courtesy Jamie Pham/L.A. Zoo

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What zoo officials are saying: “Welcoming a Cape vulture chick is a thrilling moment for our team and a beacon of hope for African vultures,” the L.A. Zoo’s curator of birds Rose Legato said in a statement. “Vultures are one of nature's most misunderstood marvels, and I cannot wait for our guests to eventually watch this chick grow and learn just how vital they are to our ecosystems.”

About the species: Cape vultures are listed as a vulnerable species due to human activities and encroachment. According to the L.A. Zoo, African vultures are more closely related to eagles and hawks than vultures native to the Americas, like the zoo's California condors that hatched last year.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

What should have been a celebration for formerly incarcerated youth completing a reentry program at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory (BHAC) last week instead ended with seven students and two staff members detained by the Los Angeles Police Department, according to witnesses. 

Now, nearly a week later, BHAC staff and city officials are demanding answers from the LAPD, with some accusing officers of racial profiling. 

According to the LAPD, officers observed a large group gathered on the corner of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Mott Street around 4:16 p.m. on March 26. Authorities then requested backup for what they described as “a large group surrounding officers,” LAPD Public Information Officer Tony Im said. 

The group, classified by police as an “aggressive gang group,” consisted of seven 18-year-old students from the BHAC’s Bridge Academy Movement (BAM) program and two BHAC staff members.

The BAM program pays formerly incarcerated youth to complete 200-250 hours in media and visual arts training to prepare them for creative careers. That day, students were set to showcase their work at the BAM program graduation for families and community members. 

Rene Weber, a teaching artist at the BHAC, had been with the students setting up for the ceremony minutes before the incident occurred. 

According to Weber, the students had gone to coffee across the street at Milpa Kitchen as they often did, when staff were alerted that they were being detained. 

Weber said he arrived to find students and a staff member pressed against the wall in handcuffs. 

Video from the scene, taken by a staff member at the BHAC, shows multiple officers surrounding the group. At one point, an officer orders a person to “get on the wall” and displays a stun gun.  

“No, none of that, these are kids right here,” the staff member replies.

Another staff member, Teotl Veliz, recorded a large police response.  

“I counted 12 cop cars, that’s at least 25 cops, and they had a helicopter,” Veliz said. “It was just so comedic, tragically comedic, that it was on their graduation day too.”

Officers established a perimeter with yellow tape along the side of Ashley’s Beauty Salon as local business owners and witnesses gathered around the students. 

“I was just incredibly disappointed in LAPD… because it became so apparent to everybody, all at the same time, that it was racial profiling and nothing else,” Veliz said.

Weber said officers gave shifting explanations for the stop at the scene, including blocking the sidewalk and possible underage vaping. After Weber told the officers that all of the students were 18, they said they would investigate whether the group had any gang affiliation. 

Police have not responded to questions about what led officers to believe that the group was gang-affiliated. 

Weber recalled pleading with the officers to let the group go and explaining to them that they worked across the street. Community members and local business owners also stepped in to vouch for the students. 

“Our job is to help them gain a new perspective on life,” Weber said. “They’re coming out of juvenile detention and they’re turning their lives around. We can do our part in keeping them off the streets and keeping them doing better but what does it mean if they’re going to be profiled and treated exactly the same way?” 

In total, seven 18-year-old students and two staff members were detained. BHAC staff said one student and one staff member were taken to Hollenbeck Community Police Station and released less than two hours later after advocacy from community members and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.

The incident ultimately resulted in an infraction for smoking a cannabis e-vape on a public sidewalk, according to a photo of the infraction shared with the Beat. LAPD did not provide details about the people taken to Hollenbeck Station or the infraction. 

The graduation ceremony was cancelled that night and is expected to be rescheduled in April. 

“Graduation should be a moment of pride and possibility — not fear,” Jurado said in a statement. “I’m seeking answers about what occurred, and this underscores the need for stronger relationships between law enforcement and community organizations so moments like these are protected, not disrupted.”

Carmelita Ramirez‑Sanchez, the conservatory’s executive director, said she was grateful to the community and Jurado for advocating for the students’ release. Jurado met her at Hollenbeck Station within 20 minutes of being alerted to the incident, she said. 

“They had store owners, señoras, barbers, that ran out and were trying to explain to the police who our kids were,” Ramirez‑Sanchez said. 

Still, she said the incident tarnished what should have been a joyous celebration.

“I imagine that what this does is derail this entire idea that you can be an active participant in your own restorative growth,” she said.