Long the scourge of illicit cannabis growers, officials from California Department of Fish and Wildlife will be in Healdsburg a week from Wednesday to help aspiring *legal* cultivators come in out of the cold.  

 

Officially a 'pop-up technical workshop,' the day-long event might be viewed as a lifeline adrift in a bureaucratic sea.

  

"We realize that our process can be highly technical in nature, sometimes confusing and we know from experience that, and from feedback from cultivators and their advocates that there's a fair amount of back and forth that can get frustrating for potential licensees."

  

That's Jeremy Valverde, director of the cannabis program at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

  

Valverde says typically, work such as culvert repairs to assure stream flows and erosion control measures can be required before the issuance of a coveted 'Lake and Streambed Alteration Agreement.' That's the first of several required licenses from a number of different state and local entities before cannabis may be grown legally in many locations.

  

"If someone comes in the door with their project, we're going to pull it up on a computer, we're going to have our engineer and geologist there to talk about roads or what have you, we are going to have our scientific staff there to talk about mitigation measures, and we are going to progress them along toward completion of that project. We're cutting out the sort of back and forth of the emails and the letters and the incompletes and we're trying to get people a little bit closer to be completed with their project. So I would say there's a 100 percent benefit to folks that come in the door with specific project that they need help with," Valverde said.

 

The event is scheduled for Wednesday, February 9th from 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. at the Dry Creek Inn in Healdsburg. Direct, face-to-face meetings and support can be scheduled by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and putting 'technical popup' in the subject line.