Some places do have regulations, others don't. Some make them too late and have to grandfather in abominations like these. It varies from county to county. The Dark Sky project cited earlier is a good place to learn about those regulations.
On another note, there are other issues with a grow op in Southern Colorado. One is water usage. While not as bad as tomatoes or almonds, cannabis does take a good amount of water to grow. And that water, full of nitrogen & phosphate fertilizer has to go into the local sewage system or worse into a septic system. It costs a lot of money for waste water plants to remove that fertilizer. And any runoff sitting in a septic system is waiting for a flood to get into the local creeks and rivers where it causes algal blooms and fish die off.
As we've seen with the alpacas, the environment out there is very dry. They'd likely be taking from groundwater which could cause issues for nearby farms & ranches. Add to that fishing tourism is big money in Colorado, even in the drier southern portion, so any fish die off from improperly treated water runoff could really hurt the local tourism industry.
Then there are issues with local power grid handling the extraordinary energy requirements, the fact it's not even legal in that county, and a constant stream of low paid workers needing to be housed. These are issues that have caused problems in more developed areas than that very rural county. Most grow ops fail, out in California it's something like 80% and in the US
total it's 37%. Mostly because idiots think it's easy money (it's not) and go rent or buy land in places that can't support the op. This sounds like bad deal for the locals.
. You cannot make up something this amusing.
oOl complications, as his body gets even more fucked.. maybe fittingly, about age 41.
