Judge: County can't ban water delivery to Hmong pot farmers

Judge: County can't ban water delivery to Hmong pot farmers

SeattlePI.com

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled Northern California county officials can't stop trucks from delivering water to Hmong cannabis farmers, saying the practice raises “serious questions” about racial discrimination and leaves the growers without a source of water for drinking, bathing and growing food.

Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller last week issued a temporary injunction against Siskiyou County’s prohibition on trucked-in water deliveries to Hmong farmers growing marijuana in the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision in the Big Springs area north of the town of Weed.

“Without an injunction, the plaintiffs and other members of the Shasta Vista Hmong community will likely go without water for their basic needs and will likely lose more plants and livestock,” she wrote in the ruling issued last Friday.

“The plaintiffs have also raised serious questions about their constitutional right to be free from racial discrimination,” she added.

Mueller’s injunction takes effect immediately and will remain in place until the conclusion of a federal lawsuit filed by the Hmong community against county ordinances aimed at cutting off the water supply to illegal marijuana grows. They allege the ordinances were racially motivated and violated their civil rights. No trial date has been scheduled, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Authorities estimate there are 5,000 to 6,000 greenhouses growing pot in the Big Springs area, with as many as 4,000 to 8,000 people tending them, most of them Hmong and immigrants of Chinese descent who have moved to the area in the last five years.

Siskiyou County officials this spring approved ordinances that prohibit selling well water without a permit and ban water trucks on the roads leading to the subdivision.

The permit forms are all...

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