Jackson County, Ore. –A helicopter and about a dozen volunteers on the ground with the ‘Southern Oregon Multi-Agency Marijuana Eradication and Reclamation’, also known as S.O.M.M.E.R. spent Monday cleaning up old marijuana grows near Mt. Ashland.
Michael Klam is helped with the days clean up and says while most of the marijuana has already been hauled away, there are plenty of other things to pick up.
“People actually lived on site here so there is a lot of trash, gas cans, cooking stuff, sleeping bags,” Klam said.
With the use of a helicopter, piles of debris are placed into nets and hauled away.
It’s their hope that by cleaning up what’s left over, illegal growerswon’t return.
“If we don’t take the stuff out, if we leave the hose and the equipment in there, they come back to the exact same spot and then it’s just kind of a revolving door,” said Lt. Matt Thomson with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.
But it is more than just a clean up. Because the growers cut down trees and dig into the ground, the land must be restored.
“We reclaim the land so hopefully the trees will go again like they are supposed to and there won’t be erosion problems,” said Thomson.
Over the past year, 15 sites have been cleaned up, but Lt. Thomson says that number is dwindling.
The SOMMER program, which has been around since 2010, is comprised of seven Oregon Sheriff’s offices , B.L.M. and the forest service.
Monday’s clean up was funded by the forest service.
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