Police find another pot field
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 10:27 AM PDT
VALE — The Malheur County Sheriff’s Office busted yet another marijuana grow this past weekend — in the same area where police secured a $60 million haul in pot plants a few weeks ago.
The area, near the White Horse Creek Drainage area, about 20 miles northwest of McDermitt, Nev., is an isolated stretch of high desert mountains and ridges and seemingly the perfect area to hide the illegal marijuana.
Except law enforcement officials have been scouring the area for several months and that culminated in a big operation in early August that netted more than $60 million in illegal marijuana plants.
A flyover, surveillance operation Friday by a Malheur County Search & Rescue plane discovered the second grow in the bottom of a creek near White Horse Creek Drainage.
Law enforcement entered the garden on Sunday morning, but no people were found. Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe said more than 8,800 marijuana plants were destroyed at 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Of the more than 8,800 plants recovered, most of them were adult plants ranging in height from 4 feet to just more than 7 feet tall, Wolfe said.
“It appeared that the harvesting process had just begun, and it appeared whoever was in there tending the product packed out some of the product, and that’s why no one was found,” he said.
The plants gathered were valued at approximately $17,600,000, Wolfe said. The area where the latest grow was found was approximately six miles above the early-August pot field.
“They try to conceal the plants among sage brush and willows and juniper trees,” Wolfe said of the marijuana grows. “You’d think, with that many plants, it’s be easy to see.”
Conditions, however, such as the position of the sun, have to be right for the grows to be spotted, Wolfe said.
“It’s easy to miss them,” he said, adding, sheriff’s officers had looked in the area about a quarter mile from the current grow before but did not locate the garden until Friday.
Wolfe said the latest operation was conducted by the Sheriff’s Office, BLM and Malheur County Search & Rescue.
More work in the area is anticipated as marijuana harvest season has begun.
“So we probably have a couple weeks left,” Wolfe said. “All indications are showing it’s just starting to get into the harvest.”
Jessica Keller is the News Editor of the Argus Observer. She can be contacted at JessicaK@argusobserver.com.
