An ecologically sensitive area of the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park recently got a big helping hand from a dedicated young man.
In December 2009, park rangers and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office shut down an illegal marijuana-growing operation in the sandhills portion of the park near the intersection of Graham Hill Road and Lockewood Lane.
Though the plants were cleared away, the people who had cultivated them were never caught, and trash and debris remained tangled in the chaparral — plastic bins, fertilizer bottles, hoses, plastic sheeting, garbage and liquor bottles.
Enter 17-year-old Seth Duty.
Duty, a high school senior and Boy Scout from the Campbell area of San Jose, reached out to state parks Ranger Gary Brennan in April 2010 as he looked for a community service project to advance to the rank of Eagle, the highest level in Scouting.
On March 19, Duty and a posse of 13 family members and fellow Scouts braved seven hours of rain and “cantaloupe-sized hail” to haul out nearly half the rubbish under low branches on uneven terrain to where the truck waited about a quarter-mile away.
Eight days later, Duty’s crew was at it again, this time with good weather — pulling out trash, separating the recyclables and filling in ditches that had been cut to irrigate the plants.
Duty estimated they had found 200 containers hidden away throughout the area.
“It’s definitely a cool project,” Duty said. “It’s cool to be able to give back to the state park system.”
Brennan, who first spotted the illegal plantings while checking satellite images on Google Earth, said the project was “a major cleanup.”
“They got a lot taken out of there, and that’s great for us,” Brennan said. “(Without Duty), we wouldn’t have been able to get this done in a timely manner.”
The ranger said one of the biggest worries was the deterioration of the plastic containers in the consistent sunlight and the potential for harm to the ecosystem should any of the liquids, such as fertilizer, leak out.
“Basically, everything up here is plastic,” Brennan said, picking up a brittle and crumbling plastic plant food container.
“This whole project is a win-win (for the park and for Duty)” he added. “It’s a big cleanup in an environmentally sensitive area.”
Brennan said the park plans to host several community service days to encourage other young people to follow Duty’s example.
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