Law enforcement raided the illegal cannabis operation in Shasta-Trinity National Forest months before, but rotting potatoes still sat on the growers’ makeshift kitchen worktop, waiting to be cooked. Ecologist Greta Wengert stared down the pockmarked hillside at a pile of pesticide sprayers left behind, long after the raid. Wild animals had gnawed through the pressurized canisters, releasing the chemicals inside. “They’re just these little death bombs, waiting for any wildlife that is going to investigate,” said Wengert, co-founder of the Integral Ecology Research Center, a nonprofit that studies the harms caused by cannabis grows on public lands. For all her stoic professionalism, she sounded a little sad. For over a decade, Wengert and her colleagues have warned that illegal cannabis grows like this one dangerously pollute California’s public lands and pristine watersheds, with lasting consequences for ecosystems, water and wildlife. Now, they’re sounding another alarm — that inadequate federal funding, disjointed communication, dangerous conditions and agencies stretched thin at both the state and federal levels are leaving thousands of grow sites — and their trash, …