SOLANO ABUZZ OVER BIG POT BUST

8,000 Marijuana Plants Set Aflame by Sheriff's Officials

Solano County officials seized 8,000 marijuana plants worth $40
million this week, a bust the sheriff Thursday called the largest of
its kind in county history.

Sheriff Gary Stanton said officials didn't yet know who was growing
the massive crop -- planted in patches over hundreds of acres of
rugged terrain in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Vacaville. Whoever it
was, he said, tapped local springs to irrigate the plants and slept at
a rudimentary campsite nearby.

But as Stanton watched one of his deputies douse a one-ton pile of the
green plants with diesel fuel and set it ablaze -- sending up clouds
of pungent smoke -- Stanton said he knew one thing: "Somebody is
definitely out of a substantial investment."

Authorities first stumbled across the crop Aug. 27 after responding to
a neighbor's complaint of trespassers. Deputies arrested one man on
trespassing charges in connection with the bust; his name and any
information he provided to investigators are being withheld to protect
his safety, Stanton said.

In the following days, deputies kept finding marijuana plants spread
over a circle a mile wide, growing on terraces cut into steep
hillsides so overgrown with brush and poison oak that authorities had
to hack their way in with machetes, Stanton said. Ultimately, it took
the bird's eye view from a California Highway Patrol helicopter to
locate all the plants -- which were budding and nearly ready for harvest.

More than a dozen sheriff's deputies spent Thursday cutting down the
plants, digging up their roots and flying the debris -- 500 pounds at
a time -- to a field east of Vacaville where Deputy Ken Kramer tended
a giant bonfire of burning pot.

"You can tell by the smell, it's the good stuff," Stanton said. "I
could smell it from the helicopter at 80 feet."

After saving a sample as evidence, the best option was to burn the
rest of it, Stanton said.

"Storing this quantity of marijuana is a nightmare," he said. "It
rots, it gets moldy, and it emits such a strong odor, it makes people
sick."

Nearby, Kramer prodded the burning pile with a pitchfork. Kramer, 35,
guessed he had burned 4,600 plants over two days, adding, "I've been
trying to avoid the downwind."

Normally assigned to community policing, Kramer said he was picked for
the job because he has a commercial driver's license, which allows him
to drive the flatbed truck hauling the plants to the burn site.

As a commercial driver, he conceded, that also means he is subject to
random drug tests.

"Obviously, I probably wouldn't pass," said Kramer, noting that he
thinks his employer would give him a slide under the
circumstances.

Kramer said his family got a big laugh when the local paper printed a
photograph of him on Thursday's front page tending a smoke-out that
some folks would go out of their way to try to find. His 13-year-old
daughter seemed especially amused, he said.

"She just laughs. She's in junior high school, and sees the stoner
kids at school," Kramer said. "There's a comical side to this, I guess."