Thousands of grows have shuttered while the state's marijuana industry has deflated in recent years.
When Oklahomans made medical marijuana legal in the state, a new industry was created. Business boomed rapidly, but as the industry eventually settled, grow operations have left behind infrastructure and environmental concerns, unpaid obligations and an expensive clean up bill along with it.
"These situations can impact landowners, neighboring property owners, county governments, state agencies and law enforcement," said Sen. Darcy Jech, R-Kingfisher.
How state departments are managing the abandoned properties was the heart of Jech's recent interim study at the Oklahoma Capitol.
Since the beginning of the state's medical marijuana program, he said, Oklahoma has issued more than 15,000 grower licenses, with the highest number of active grows reaching 9,402 in 2021.
Since then, Jech said, the industry has sharply contracted because of enforcement actions, market oversupply and license expirations. As of yesterday there were 1,703 active grower licenses in the state, according to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.
Jech is one of the authors of Oklahoma's current law requiring growers seeking a license to operate to also get a surety bond of at least $50,000. Those funds can be used to clean up and restore the property if the license holder abandons it.
During the study, Jech asked different Oklahoma departments how they are enforcing the law and what other tools are needed. In a later press release, he said the agencies are doing the best with the resources at hand.
"Oklahoma cannot have a system where the state is effective at shutting down unlicensed marijuana operations but ineffective at making sure the property is cleaned up afterward," Jech said in the press release.
Trash, sewage and burn sites at abandoned grows
State agency leaders said the process for working cases has improved, stressing communication and coordination among involved agencies.
Officials from the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Oklahoma Insurance Department, Oklahoma Attorney General's Office and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spoke at the meeting.
DEQ investigates environmental complaints of marijuana facilities. Madison Miller, DEQ's deputy director, said the department has worked 517 complaints on medical marijuana sites since the state's industry began.
They refer some of those cases to other agencies, including four cases involving pesticides to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
"For comparison, to this total number of medical marijuana complaints DEQ has received, DEQ receives around 4,000, give or take, complaints per year," Miller said.
Environmental concerns at sites include open dumping, open burning, surfacing sewage and improper industrial wastewater disposal. Most of the time, Miller said, it's a lot of trash.
Cleaning the trash alone is costly. But if an abandoned site has contaminated soil or has containers of chemicals, she said, it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"That [surety] bond, or some source of funding would be extremely useful when that situation arises," Miller said. "Hopefully, it doesn't. We haven't seen it yet."
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officials said there were about 8,400 licensed and registered marijuana grows in the state three years ago through the agency. Now, there are about 1,277.
Mitch Smith, a lieutenant colonel with the bureau, said dumping is the main problem. But the bureau has also recovered illegal pesticides.
"Pesticides that are produced in China that have been smuggled into the United States, that has become more and more of a problem," Smith said. "There's about 13 different types of pesticides that have been discovered in the State of Oklahoma at grow facilities."
In July, a federal indictment against two employees of a state-registered Seminole County marijuana farm was unsealed. Both employees are facing charges relating to foreign pesticides, including Unlawful Distribution and Sale of Pesticides.
Smith said the investigation process involves a handful of state agencies, and cleaning up sites is not a perfect practice. But as enforcement continues and new rules are implemented, he said, the types of operations have changed and certain issues are becoming less common.
"To be quite honest, no one across the nation, any law enforcement agency, besides maybe some folks in California, had any idea of what this is going to be like," Smith said. "So to say that we all are writing the playbook as we go is an understatement."
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
