A New York power plant that mines bitcoin faces big test in governor's office

Isabelle Lee
Mon, October 18, 2021,

Cryptocurrency mining machines. FEDERICO PARRA / Getty Images


Greenidge Generation has drawn the ire of several environmental organizations for its massive energy consumption.


The groups called on NY Gov. Kathy Hochul to block its permit to operate.


The signatories highlighted how this will jeopardize the state's progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.


Greenidge Generation's power plant in New York that's mining bitcoin has drawn the ire of several environmental businesses and organizations, all of whom recently urged Governor Kathy Hochul to block its permit to operate.

"New York must halt this move to turn old fossil-fuel-powered plants into crypto mining centers until a full environmental assessment is conducted on the impact that these operations will have on greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the state's air and water quality," according to a letter dated October 13 addressed to the governor with more than a hundred signatories.

The letter cited how a crypto mining expansion in the state could "drastically undermine New York's climate goals established under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act." The Associated Press was first to report.


New York State Commissioner Basil Seggos also took to Twitter to call out Greenidge saying it "not shown compliance with New York's climate law."

Bitcoin mining - the process whereby computers solve complex puzzles to verify transactions and are rewarded with new coins - has long been criticized for its intensive energy consumption.

The signatories raised issues with resurrecting defunct fossil fuel power plants, highlighting how this will jeopardize the state's progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

As such, they are demanding the governor deny the renewal of the plant's air quality permit. Included in the letter is also a request to deny the permit of the Fortistar North Tonawanda Facility, a natural gas-burning power plant.

Greenidge maintained it is compliant with all laws. New York has yet to make a determination on its permits.
How Greenidge started bitcoin mining

Greenidge Generation began in 1937 as a coal-fired power plant, according to its website. A corporation purchased the plant in 1999 and continued to operate it until 2011.

Then in 2014, a group of private investment funds acquired Greenidge and converted it to cleaner-burning natural gas, allowing it to provide electricity to power up to 20,000 homes and businesses in 2020 alone, the website added.

In 2020, it started commercially mining bitcoin. Today, the company claims to be the "first and only carbon neutral, vertically integrated power generator and bitcoin miner of scale" in the US.

Greenidge in the third quarter of 2020 said in a statement it mined 729 bitcoins and had approximately 15,300 miners in operation.

While there are many opponents of the facility, it does have some advocates. This includes Chairman of the Yates County Legislature Douglas Paddock who, in a public hearing testimony last week, said the plant has brought 45 high-paying jobs to the area and has made a "significant contribution" through tax payments and capital investments, the AP reported.

Around the US, crypto mining plants have and will continue to rise, especially following China's wide-ranging digital asset ban. The US, in fact, has already unseated the Asian nation as the world's biggest bitcoin miner, according to data from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance as miners migrate out of China.

Beirut port explosion probe: Lebanese PM facing 'Shakespearean dilemma'


Issued on: 19/10/2021 - 


A Shiite rally against port blast judge Tarek Bitar escalated into deadly clashes, turning parts of Beirut into a war zone and sparking memories of the 1975-1990 civil war. And so now the Lebanese people will have to choose, explains Joseph Bahout, IFI Director and Professor at American University of Beirut (AUB), 'between stability, peace, etc. which is something dear and valuable, and truth on the harbor explosion that have left, in fact, the city completely destroyed and people's minds completely destroyed.' Offering historical perspective, Professor Bahout adds, 'If you think of it historically and retrospectively, this is a choice that Lebanon is always confronting.' Both during the civil war, and following the assassination of Rafic Hariri, Lebanon 'had to confront this choice between truth and reconciliation, on the one hand, and stability on the other.' Despite assurances of Prime Minister Najib Mikati that the page will be turned, Professor Bahout warns that the prime minister is facing a 'Shakespearean dilemma.' And so, he fears that the government of Lebanon will ultimately follow the model of authoritarian regimes in the region by making 'the choice of preserving civil peace and squandering, and maybe dropping, the case of Judge Bitar and the entire inquiry on the port explosion.'

Two dead, 450 arrested in Chile 

DUE TO POLICE CREATED protest violence

Protesters demanded universal healthcare, free and improved schooling and higher pensions.

Issued on: 19/10/2021

A protester in Santiago brandishes a Mapuche flag during demonstrations to mark the second anniversary of Chile's October 2019 social uprising against inequality

 Martin BERNETTI AFP

Santiago (AFP)

Two people died, 56 were injured and 450 arrested as clashes broke out in Chile during mass street protests to mark the second anniversary of a social uprising, police said on Tuesday.

Monday's demonstrations throughout the country were to mark the October 2019 protests that sparked political change in the country and led to the start of a process to re-write the Pinochet dictatorship-era constitution.

A man was killed by gunfire during an attempted robbery of a shop in Santiago on Monday while a woman died after falling from a motorcycle, also in the capital.


Most disturbances on Monday took place in Santiago where vandals set up street barricades, attacked a police station, and looted shops and public buildings, a police report said.

Authorities detained 450 people throughout the country, 279 of those in Santiago, while 11 civilians and 45 police officers were injured.

"The numbers are very high," said Marcelo Araya, director of order and security at Chile's Carabineros national police force.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in 50 locations around the country to mark the anniversary of the street protests led by students and sparked by a hike in metro fares.

The unrest that followed left 34 dead and 460 people with eye injuries, including some that lost their sight, from pellets and tear gas fired by police.

Billionaire right-wing President Sebastian Pinera's government came under fire over the at times brutal response from security forces that included some rights violations.

The protests continued for four months up to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Juan Francisco Galli, the interior undersecretary, blamed Monday's violence on opposition candidates for next month's presidential election, leftist Gabriel Boric and centrist Yasna Provoste, for proposing and supporting pardons for detainees that "looted, destroyed everything and threw Molotov cocktails" during the 2019 protests.

"The people responsible for the violence are those that established in our country a sense of impunity, that there are no consequences for violence," said Galli.

The violence contrasted with the peaceful protest by 10,000 people on Plaza Italia, the central square in Santiago that was the hub of the 2019 movement, whose behavior was "largely positive," according to Araya.

That protest lasted around four hours with minimal police presence, although authorities had earlier removed traffic lights and rubbish bins to prevent vandals from damaging them.

Some 5,000 police officers were deployed throughout the country to keep order, according to local press.

Protesters demanded universal healthcare, free and improved schooling and higher pensions.

The demonstration coincided with the constituent assembly elected to re-write the constitution beginning its work following a period of 100 days in which it set out its internal rules.

The current constitution was implemented during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-90) and was one of the main targets of the 2019 protests.

© 2021 AFP

NGOs decry 'incalculable harm' from Poland abortion ban

Issued on: 19/10/202

Demonstrators carrying signs with a red lightning bolt, the symbol of the Polish women's strike movement, take part in a protest against Poland's near-total ban on abortion in Warsaw, on March 8, 2021 

Wojtek Radwanski AFP/File

Brussels (AFP)

A coalition of 14 rights groups on Tuesday denounced "extreme barriers" to legal abortions in Poland a year after a ruling for a near-total ban, and said that women's rights activists faced growing dangers.

Abortion has become a political battleground in Poland where in October 2020 its highest court sided with the Catholic country's right-wing government to rule that terminations due to foetal defects were unconstitutional, tightening already heavy restrictions.

The group of NGOs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, said that as a result "women, girls, and all pregnant people have faced extreme barriers to accessing legal abortions".

The rights groups also warned that "since the ruling, women human rights defenders have also faced an increasingly hostile and dangerous environment" in Poland.

They cited the case of a leading activist, Marta Lampert, who faced "escalating death threats" after leading demonstrations calling for legal abortions and women's rights.

"The Constitutional Tribunal ruling is causing incalculable harm to women and girls -– especially those who are poor, live in rural areas, or are marginalised," Urszula Grycuk, international advocacy coordinator at the Federation for Women and Family Planning in Poland, said in a joint statement.

"The dignity, freedom and health of pregnant people are compromised because their own government is denying them access to essential reproductive health care."

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal, which the EU says has been had its independence stripped away, is currently at the centre of a separate row with Brussels after a controversial ruling against the supremacy of the bloc's laws.

The rights groups said that Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has "targeted women's rights organisations" in the wake of the abortion ruling.

"Activists said that government rhetoric and media campaigns smearing them and their work foster misinformation and hate that can put their safety at risk," the joint statement said.

The NGOs called on the European Commission to immediately implement a mechanism that could see Poland denied funds from Brussels for not respecting "EU values".

© 2021 AFP

Court rules Colombia responsible for journalist's rape and torture

Jineth Bedoya was kidnapped, tortured and raped by paramilitaries 21 years ago. After fighting for years, she has now finally found justice in the form of an international verdict.

    

Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya said the court verdict was a victory

 over sexual violence against women

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has ruled that Colombia is responsible for the kidnapping, rape and torture of a female journalist by paramilitaries in 2000.

Jineth Bedoya, who worked for the South American country's El Espectador newspaper at the time of the ordeal, tweeted it was a "historic" decision for all women who suffer sexual violence.

What did judges say?

The court said Monday the crimes "could not have been carried out without the consent and collaboration of the [Colombian] State, or at least with its tolerance."

The court, which meets in Costa Rican capital, San Jose, said "the State was internationally responsible for the violation of the rights to judicial guarantees and protection, and equality before the law."

It added that Colombia was guilty of "failing to investigate the threats that had been received," by both Bedoya and her mother.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is located in San Jose, Costa Rica

To make up for its complicity, the four judges ordered Colombia to "punish those remaining responsible for the acts of violence."

In the long run, it asked Colombia to train public officials and security officials on the subject of violence against women, establish a center to commemorate victims and compensate Bedoya for the crimes against her.

What happened to Bedoya?

Bedoya, now 47, was a young journalist when far-right militia kidnapped her at Colombia's notorious La Modelo prison as she was about to interview paramilitaries about a weapons smuggling ring.

The militia brutally raped and tortured her for 16 hours before leaving her naked by a roadside.

Since then, Bedoya, now a reporter for the newspaper El Tiempo, and her mother had suffered "persecution, intimidation and constant threats."

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights referred the case to the independent court of the Organization of American States in 2019. Its decisions are definitive and have no right of appeal.

The IACHR began examining the case in March, when the Colombian state first apologized to her for its role in the crime.

What has been the reaction so far?

Bedoya tweeted that the ruling went far beyond her own particular case.

"October 18, 2021 goes down in history as the day when a struggle that began with an individual crime has led to the vindication of the rights of thousands of women who have been victims of sexual violence and of women journalists who leave a part of their lives in their work," she said.

Portraits of women killed in Colombia testifty to the constant violence against women

Bedoya received the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize in 2020.

Colombian President Ivan Duque tweeted that his country "fully accepts the decision," adding, "I will always condemn any violent act against women and journalists."

The Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP) said Monday's "dignified" decision was a victory for a woman who "has tirelessly sought justice for more than 20 years."

It was echoed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which called it "a historic acknowledgment of the deadly dangers that Colombia's female journalists face."

The ruling comes as Colombia tries to deal with a troubled past where thousands were killed and abused during a long and bloody war between the state and paramilitaries.

jc/rt (AFP, dpa)

After #MeToo, now #DoublePeine: French women accuse police of downplaying rape


Issued on: 19/10/2021 -

The #MeToo movement in France was accompanied by the hashtag #BalanceTonPorc. In 2021, the hashtag #DoublePeine emerged to denounce the inaction or dismissiveness of police in response to women reporting gender-based violence. © FRANCE 24

Four years after the #MeToo movement, French victims of gender-based violence are still struggling to obtain justice, with the police accused of failing to take their complaints seriously.

In past weeks, France has been gripped by a wave of new stories of sexual assault and harassment. Complaints this time are focussing on the way police treat women who come forward to report cases of assault or abuse.

The outpouring was triggered by an Instagram post by feminist Anna Toumazoff relating women's experiences when reporting attacks at the main police station in the southern city of Montpellier.

Toumazoff described victims being stigmatised, humiliated and made to feel guilty by the police, two years after the government launched a major drive to train officers on handling cases of gender-based violence.

"In France, police ask rape victims if they had an orgasm," Toumazoff tweeted, referring to the case of a 19-year-old woman who reported a rape in early September.

Toumazoff claimed rape victims were told that a person who has been drinking had "automatically consented" to sex and that they "should not destroy lives" by bringing charges against their attackers.

Montpellier police in dock

The allegations led thousands of abuse victims across France to share stories of dismissive or contemptuous treatment by police, using the hashtag "DoublePeine" (victimised twice).

The state's representative in the Herault region where Montpellier is located threatened Toumazoff with a lawsuit for slander.

But the government of Emmanuel Macron, who has made tackling violence against women a key theme of his presidency, lent a more sympathetic ear.

Last week, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin reported that around 90,000 police officers had received training over the past two years in handling abuse cases with empathy and sensitivity.

But he admitted that there was "certainly" room for improvement and promised an investigation into the Montpellier complaints.

Echoes of #MeToo

There have been several French offshoots of the global #MeToo movement smashing taboos around sexual harassment and assault.

In 2017, the #BalanceTonPorc (Expose Your Pig) hashtag was used by thousands of women to post stories of abuse.

Three years later, a scandal involving a prominent intellectual accused of sexually abusing his teenage stepson triggered thousands of people to share harrowing accounts of abuse within families, using the #Metooinceste slogan.

The reckoning with abuse has extended to cinema, politics and elite colleges in a country where seduction was traditionally viewed as an integral part of French culture and women who complained about harassment were often dismissed as puritanical.

'Not a child molester'

On the doublepeine.fr website, hundreds of women describe their struggle to have their cases taken seriously by police.

One said she was date raped and then told by police that she should drop the complaint because her attacker had "suffered enough" by being called in for questioning.

Another woman claimed that police brushed off her repeated complaints of domestic violence on the basis that her husband was "not a child molester".

Faced with such attitudes, several women said they withdrew their complaints.

Bringing in lawyers

Fabienne Boulard, a senior police officer who trains fellow officers on how to handle domestic violence cases, admitted to AFP that the police's response was "still not the best".

Officers still needed help navigating complex issues like the psychological violence that often accompanies domestic abuse cases, she said.

Darmanin has proposed sending officers to meet victims at a safe place to register their complaint instead of making them come to the police station.

But the #NousToutes (All of Us) feminist group said the problem was not where, but how police interacted with victims.

A group of around 100 lawyers has lobbied the government to allow rape victims to bring a lawyer when filing complaints, with gender equality minister Elisabeth Moreno saying she is "favourable" to the idea.

(AFP)

Taboo attached to breast cancer kills women in remote areas of Togo
Issued on: 19/10/2021


The World Health Organisation is celebrating the International Day against breast cancer on Tuesday. In remote areas access to health care is a struggle and in West Africa, in the far north of Togo, women with breast cancer are often abandoned by their husbands. FRANCE 24's team on the ground report.

 

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual campaign to raise awareness about the impact of breast cancer. On this occasion, Dr Benjamin Anderson, Surgeon, breast cancer Specialist at the World Health Organization, talks to FRANCE 24.

ANOTHER REASON TO USE FACE MASKS
Breathing spreads tuberculosis bacteria, research suggests

T

Tuberculosis is historically the world's number one infectious killer causing some 1.5 million deaths worldwide during an average year 

GIANLUIGI GUERCIA AFP/File


Issued on: 19/10/2021 - 
Paris (AFP)

Breathing is enough to spread the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, research presented at a major conference on Tuesday shows, potentially forcing the medical community to rethink decades of containment strategy focusing on coughing alone.

Using state-of-the-art equipment, at team at the University of Cape Town in South Africa measured the disease-causing Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) in 39 people with TB.

They looked at aerosols released during regular breathing, deep breathing and coughing and found that after five minutes all three produced particles containing the dangerous bacteria.

And while coughing produced three times more Mtb than breathing, the research notes that because people breathe all day long, simply exhaling may contribute more than 90 percent of airborne Mtb.

Tuberculosis is historically the world's number one infectious killer, causing some 1.5 million deaths worldwide during an average year and has been surpassed only recently by Covid-19.

A chronic cough is a hallmark of the disease and so far research has focused on people who show symptoms -- but, like with Covid, people can carry tuberculosis without showing symptoms.

Study lead Ryan Dinkele said that the findings may explain why the current approach of testing and treating only tuberculosis patients who feel sick enough to seek treatment may not go far enough to prevent its spread.

"This leaves room for extensive Mtb transmission prior to treatment seeking," he told AFP.

He said an alternative approach would be to search for people who have tuberculosis without waiting for them to seek treatment.

"However, if transmission is possible in the absence of symptoms this is extremely challenging," he said.

He added that the study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, shows that aerosols rather than sputum -- phlegm which has been traditionally targeted to diagnose tuberculosis -- should be used to determine infectiousness.

According to the World Health Organization about a quarter of the world's population is infected with the TB bacteria -- but only five to 15 percent of these fall ill with the disease, most of whom live in low- and middle-income countries.

Dinkele noted that bringing the disease under control would require not only identifying potential early spreaders but also taking measures to improve air safety.

He said meaningful changes in behaviour like increased airflow, filtration and sterilisation in buildings to ensure better protection for uninfected individuals can be costly.

"This leaves poorer countries vulnerable to an inability to implement such changes," he said.

© 2021 AFP

Patents to tackle plastic waste on the rise

As the use of plastic increases, scientists and inventors are looking for ways to get a handle on the problem of plastic waste. Recent patent data points to promising innovations, especially from Europe and the US.

Discarded computers contain many different plastics that can be reused

There are currently thousands of different types of plastic available and the lion's share of new plastic soon ends up as waste. As mountains of the used stuff continue to pile up around the world, people are looking for new ways to reduce, reuse and recycle some of it. But getting rid of even a tiny amount of it will be a gargantuan job, especially with the popularity of hard-to-recycle products and single-use plastic.

In 2019, nearly 370 million tons of plastic were produced globally, according to the PlasticsEurope trade association. Most of it was synthesized from oil or natural gas. That's just another reason why many inventors are now tackling the issue in a multitude of ways like making things easier to recycle or even looking for alternatives to conventional plastics altogether.

Currently, the US and Europe are tied for the number of recycling-related and bioplastic technology patents, according to a study released Tuesday by the European Patent Office (EPO). Combined they account for 60% of global patents between 2010 and 2019 to make the plastic industry more circular.

This may seem like old data, but since patent applications are often filed years before products or processes actually appear for consumers, such information can be a good indicator of things to come. And what the EPO sees is growing innovation in recycling and alternative plastics.

Plastic bags and straws have been the focus of many single-use plastic bans around the world

Where are the ideas coming from?

EPO President Antonio Campinos shares this enthusiasm for a brighter future with less plastic pollution without resorting to outright bans.

"The good news is that innovation can help us to address this challenge by enabling the transition to a fully circular model," he said in a press release accompanying his agency's report.

In Europe in the past decade, Germany was most active in both plastic recycling and bioplastic technology patents, followed by the UK, the Netherlands and Italy. Looking closer, the authors of the EPO report see that absolute numbers are not everything, though.

"Within Europe, France, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium stand out for their specialization in both plastic recycling and bioplastic technologies. Although it posted the highest share of IPFs [international patent families] due to its larger economy, Germany lacked specialization in these fields," noted the report.

IPF is an industry term and means a single invention that has been filed at several patent offices, making it more likely to be something truly innovative and therefore worthwhile to count. Outside of Europe and the US, Japan brought in about 18% of these patents, while South Korea and China are both far behind with only about 5% each.
Plain recycling is no longer plain

At its most fundamental level, the number of patents worldwide dealing with improving basic mechanical recycling has gone up for years. Indeed, it is still the simplest and most common way to turn plastic waste into something new. Since the early 1990s, the number of patents to make things easier to recycle has also increased greatly to make that job easier.


But in the last decade, chemical and biological recycling methods have taken over patent activity. They now account for twice as many patents as traditional mechanical recycling methods. These chemical methods work by breaking the plastic into its chemical elements, which can then be reused. On the downside, these methods are often more energy-intensive.

Another option, though less explored, is biological recycling. As the name suggests, this method uses living organisms to turn plastic into compost.

The report acknowledges Europe's excellence in fundamental research in chemical and biological recycling but complained about a lack of entrepreneurial spirit to get these new ideas to the market. The continent must better exploit what it has by taking these ideas from universities and other research institutes and bringing them to the industry. Up until now, they have been well behind their successful American counterparts.
Don't forget the easy parts

Besides investigating recycling, the report also highlights a big increase in patent applications for alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastics. Manufacturing these alternatives generates fewer carbon emissions and are either biobased or biodegradable. Here the health care, packaging, cosmetic, detergent, electronics and textile sectors were at the forefront of innovation.

Yet with all these innovations, most plastic is nonetheless simply discarded. While in Europe well over 50 million tons of plastic were produced last year, "25 million tons of plastic waste went into landfill and up to 23 million tons of waste could have gone into rivers, lakes and oceans," warned the report.

No matter how fancy the technology gets or how much packaging is reduced, plastic will not go away any time soon. Making things biodegradable or easier to take apart is great progress. But whatever the future holds, the basics of recycling are still important. Simple technology will continue to play a role to better collect, sort, separate and clean plastic in a world flooded with it.

END THE WAR ON DRUGS

Oregon illegal pot grows: More calls to send National Guard


FILE - In this Sept. 30, 2016, file photo, a marijuana bud is seen before harvest at a rural area near Corvallis, Ore. On Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021, the same day that Jackson County declared a state of emergency amid a sharp increase in illegal cannabis farms, police raided a site that had about two tons of processed marijuana and 17,500 pot plants. 

(AP Photo/Andrew Selsky, File)

ANDREW SELSKY
Mon, October 18, 2021

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — On the same day last week that a southern Oregon county declared a state of emergency amid a sharp increase in illegal cannabis farms, police raided a site that had about 2 tons of processed marijuana and 17,500 pot plants.

The raid illustrates that the proliferation of industrial-scale marijuana farms has gotten so bad and so brazen that Jackson County Commissioners asked Gov. Kate Brown to send in the Oregon National Guard “to assist, as able, in the enforcement of laws related to the production of cannabis.” They also directly appealed to Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek for help getting additional funding to tackle the problem.

During last Wednesday's raid in Medford, near the California border, police found a vast outdoor growing operation, plus harvested plants hanging upside down on drying racks and 3,900 pounds (1,800 kilograms) of resinous buds stashed in huge bags and in stacks of plastic storage containers.

The officers took 26 migrant workers into custody, interviewed them and then released them. An arrest warrant was issued for the primary suspect, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office said.

Courtney said he is so concerned about the surge in illegal marijuana farms in Jackson and neighboring Josephine counties that he agrees the Oregon National Guard should be sent in. Many of the illegal growers are armed.

“You can’t solve it just at the local level, and you cannot solve it, I’m afraid, just at the usual state level and have some more state troopers down there,” the Democrat said. “The National Guard, they’re going to have to get deployed down there some way or other.”

Brown, also a Democrat, is holding off on a deployment for now but could reconsider next year, her office said.

The Josephine County commissioners wrote to Courtney in August to describe how migrant workers are being exploited and subjected to “appalling conditions,” while living in tents with no toilets, no running water or bathing facilities, unrefrigerated food and unsanitary cooking facilities.

Jackson and Josephine counties are considered the northern extension of the Emerald Triangle, a fabled marijuana-growing epicenter, of which California’s Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties form the major part.

The increasing calls for National Guard intervention recalls the drug wars of the 1990s, when the citizen-soldiers were used, including in Missouri and California.

In California's Humboldt County back then, some 200 Army soldiers, National Guardsmen and federal agents raided clandestine pot farms in rugged terrain. Residents responded with protests.

Both Oregon and California in recent years legalized the cultivation, processing and sale of marijuana, so long as those involved enter the regulated systems in each state and abide by the rules. While many have done so, with Oregon in particular reaping a bonanza in marijuana taxes, some growers have resisted.

California has also been hit by industrial-scale illegal marijuana growing operations, with eradication left to local authorities, and in federal territory, to federal officers.

In southern Oregon, the problem has gotten worse recently, law enforcement officials say.

Perhaps recognizing that local law enforcement is stretched thin, foreign cartels began setting up hundreds of unlicensed marijuana growing operations last spring, authorities say.

Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel said he believes the cartel masterminds expect to lose a few growing operations, but the sheer number of them means many will remain untouched until the marijuana is sold on the black market outside Oregon.

However, Daniel said Monday he doesn't believe the National Guard is the answer.

“If you want some National Guard troops to help you cut down plants, great, but you've got to realize there’s a lot of investigation that goes into these operations, to get the search warrants," Daniel said. "You’re going to have National Guard people sitting on their hands for a number of days at a time.”

The sheriff said he'd prefer having investigators from agencies like the Internal Revenue Service follow the money trail, and having the Drug Enforcement Administration involved.

“This is a billion-dollar industry or a multibillion-dollar industry," he said. “Where are they?”

The DEA declined to commnent.

In California, the growing operations are increasing beyond the Emerald Triangle. In July, the largest illegal marijuana bust in Los Angeles County history netted 373,000 plants that authorities say would have been worth $1 billion on the street.

The raid in the Antelope Valley of Southern California's high desert resulted in 131 arrests and the seizure of more than 33,000 pounds (14,969 kilograms) of harvested marijuana plants. That represented only a fraction of the region's illicit growing operations, authorities said.

Officials said the wide-ranging problem has grown tremendously during the coronavirus pandemic. Armed cartel members run massive growing operations, some spanning dozens of greenhouses, that are undermining California's legal marijuana market.

Amid a megadrought across the U.S. West, illegal growers are stealing water, depriving legal users including farmers and homeowners of the increasingly precious resource.

In Oregon, the Illinois Valley Soil and Water Conservation District in Josephine County has held town halls about the issue recently.

“The people of the Illinois Valley are experiencing an existential threat for the first time in local history,” said Christopher Hall, the conservation district’s community organizer.

Asked if Brown was considering deploying the Oregon National Guard, her spokeswoman, Elizabeth Merah, said the Oregon Military Department already has a full-time National Guard service member embedded in each of three law enforcement teams in southern Oregon.

She said the situation would be reexamined next year.

“Because the current growing season is drawing to a close, we are not considering deploying additional resources this year,” Merah said in an email. “The governor remains concerned about the situation and will continue to monitor what resources might be needed for the 2022 growing season.”

___

Associated Press writer Juliet Williams in San Francisco contributed to this report.

___

Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky