October 12, 2008 Just one more outrage

It's been such a gorgeous weekend--the foliage is at peak here in southern NH and the days have been warm, dry, and clear with deep blue skies to set off the reds, golds, yellows and oranges of the trees. Yesterday, Ray and I drove over to the St. Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, NH. Augustus St. Gaudens was the sculptor who created the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, the Sherman Monument at the entrance to New York City's Central Park, and the Farragut monument at Madison Square Park in New York City, among many notable sculptures. We greatly enjoyed the leisurely drive over the back roads of southern and central NH. On the way back, we stopped at another federally managed site, the John Hay National Wildlife Refuge in Newbury, NH. We took a short hike, and vowed to return when the days get longer in the spring.

All this is prelude to my reading of an article online this morning that sent me over the edge. Apparently Mexican marijuana growing cartels have long used our national parks as havens to grow marijuana. To make sure that they maximize their harvest, they have been poisoning some of our greatest land treasures.

According to the article: "Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit. Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes. Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending."

Maybe now is the time, as Ray suggests, to bring our soldiers home from Iraq, and put them to work rooting out these invaders who are threatening our natural inheritance. Please join me in contacting your reps and senators, and urge them to address this issue in earnest, before it is too late.