Tribe: Pot grow should have been cleared up sooner

An illegal marijuana grow on Washoe allotment land should have been dealt with earlier, Chairman Serrell Smokey said in a statement issued on Thursday morning.

The grow, consisting of 160 hoop houses on land allotted to the Snooks family, that had grown in size over the course of a year was raided on Sept. 20 by federal, state, tribal and local authorities.

More than 16,000 plants were destroyed as a result, amounting to nearly 62 tons of marijuana with a street value in the millions of dollars.

“The Washoe Tribe feels this illegal activity should have been handled sooner,” Smokey said. “There are serious issues with the trust responsibility between the federal government and tribes. This incident truly exposed those areas of vulnerability and jurisdiction. The Washoe Tribe will be addressing these issues with the federal government and law enforcement.”

Smokey stressed that the illegal operation was not on land owned by the tribe, but on property held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for individual Washoe families. The tribe’s constitution and bylaws limit the jurisdiction over the allotment lands.

“The Washoe Tribe does not condone this type of behavior,” he said. “We support the law enforcement action that was taken to end this operation.”

Pine View Estates resident Richard Norman said Monday he was concerned about the future of the grow.

Norman has been watching the expansion of the grow since last summer, documenting it as he went along

There’s 160 generators out there, one for every grow house, and they have been running for a year and underneath each one is a 2-5-gallon oil stain,” he said.

“There’s tons of chemicals out there,” he said. “It’s a hot toxic mess and a dump. All that plastic that’s loose is going to blow all over the Pine Nuts.” Due to the limited jurisdiction the tribe has over the property, the only other regulator with jurisdiction besides the Bureau of Indian Affairs is the Environmental Protection Agency.

Norman said he was concerned that the allotment owner would attempt to grow hemp, which is a legal crop.

Washoe Art George Jr. said he has a corner of the allotment that was given him by his uncle.

“My uncle gave me the land to get me away from the problems,” George said.

He found himself on the wrong end of the raid on Monday.

“They had seven guns pointed at me,” he said.

George said he had no idea the project was illegal.

“It’s not right that you not tell someone something you’re supposed to,” he said. “It’s the same thing as lying.”

George was living on the site at the time of the raid.

“I got a little trailer,” he said. “All that did was put me in the beacon.”

He said that once the land was leveled last summer, the grow started expanding rapidly.

“It went up pretty fast,” he said. “I ended up talking to the Chinese and I did dirt work for them and then ended up doing security for them.”