ONLY KEEN, SPECIALIZED EYE CAN SPOT POT GROW-OPS

Tamper-proof Seals No Longer The Surest Way To Find Grow-op

It takes a trained eye to spot a marijuana-growing operation in any
neighbourhood, say power officials and police.

And if you're not reading the meter, intimately acquainted with the way
electricity is distributed or the methods for growing the illegal plant,
chances are you wouldn't have a clue that a house has been transformed into
an indoor garden with thousands of dollars worth of often sophisticated
equipment.

"If you look at your water, power or gas meter, there's a tamper-proof
seal," Epcor's Bruce Dick said Monday. "If we see those are gone, the meter
reader will send out a report and we'll have to check them."

That's the most obvious way for the power company to detect that someone is
stealing electricity to operate a battery of energy-consuming lights, fans,
pumps and other gear necessary to grow pot plants. All Epcor meter readers
are trained to notice the signs of a grow house, Dick said.

Many marijuana-growing operations are far more cunning in hiding stolen
power. In such cases, the growers drill a hole through the basement wall
and connect with the home's power line before it gets to the meter.

It's also a potentially deadly procedure because the power taps must be
connected to live wires. "It would definitely have to be an electrician or
somebody who knows what they are doing," Dick said.

That way, the household will use a typical amount of power, while the
grow-op will run on stolen electricity.

The power company can detect if something is amiss, however, if several
grow houses overstress the electrical system on a street. That happened
when several grow-ops were closed down last week by police in north Edmonton.

"That puts our system under too much load and that's why they were having
trouble," Dick said. Neighbours triggered suspicion after they reported
several local failures.

RCMP Cpl. Lorne Adamitz, a member of the Green Team which works with
Edmonton police, said many of the signs of a grow house are obvious.

They often include blocked-out windows. Pot plants are light-sensitive, he
said. Light coming in through a window can throw off the growing cycle and
cause the plant to bud before the right time.

Adamitz was hesitant to estimate the number of grow operations in the
province, although it's not as common as it is on the West Coast. Between
March and December 2002, the team seized about 10,000 plants from indoor
and outdoor grow-ops ranging in size from three to five plants to more than
1,000.

Some operations grow the usually cloned female plants -- they produce
mind-altering THC -- in soil. Others use hydroponic equipment and grow the
plants in water, while some use an aeroponic system of providing water and
nutrients to roots as a mist.

And some growers have gone high-tech in hiding the signs of their illegal
business. Growers vent the homes through the chimney or dryers or rig
charcoal filters and air fresheners to hide the slightly skunky odour of
growing pot plants.