Ten years ago, hundreds of acres of fragrant flower fields, spreading from the foothills down to the shore, coated Carpinteria Valley in a burst of colors.
Today, instead of blooming orchids, residents of Carpinteria are greeted by the distinctly skunk-like odor of growing cannabis.
Since 2015, cannabis farms have monopolized the valley’s flower growing industry, bringing with them the “skunky” odor characteristic to the cannabis plant.
Prompting nausea and headaches, this smell has become an almost constant addition to Carpinteria’s neighborhoods. Although residents have filed over 2,300 odor complaints with Santa Barbara County since mid-2018, county officials continue to brush the complaints aside, electing to issue more growing permits rather than solve the problem at hand.
To date, over 166 acres of agricultural land have been registered as pot farms in the Carpinteria Valley. As that number continues to grow, we are looking at effects beyond just an unpleasant smell. Pot farms are lowering nearby home values and discouraging tourism.
Even visiting sports teams have refused to play on school campuses in the valley because of the stink.
Carbon filtration systems, called carbon “scrubbers”, are shown to dramatically decrease the smell of the growing leaves, yet only three farms in the valley use this system, leaving 100 acres of the valley without filtration. With the technology readily available to control this problem, it is time we require cannabis farms to implement a carbon filtration system.
Melia Haugen
Santa Barbara
