POT ROUNDUP IN MONTEREY

The Monterey County Sheriff's Department has seized 388 marijuana
plants with a street value of $1.94 million since Tuesday, according to
Deputy Bob Empasis.

The sheriff's department said 274 plants from four different gardens
were found in the Los Padres National Forest on Tuesday. Another camp
with 114 plants from four locations near the Villa Creek area at Big
Sur were confiscated Wednesday by the County of Monterey Marijuana
Eradication Team along with Campaign Against Marijuana Planting
officials and the U.S. Forest Service.

The Villa Creek site is about a mile and a half from Highway 1, but by
foot it would require a five-to six-mile walk. Empasis said deputies
believe the same grower ran the sites because of elaborate irrigation
systems found at both locations.

The path to the Villa Creek camp is off a forest service trail but is
well camouflaged, Empasis said.

``They tried to hide the garden under the canopy of the forest, but
marijuana needs sun to grow, so we were able to spot the plants through
air surveillance,'' Empasis said. The irrigation system, he said, was
equipped ``with a drip irrigation system coming from a spring leading
to doughboy-type pools that fed the water to the plants through a
timing system.''

No arrests were made, although Empasis said someone had been living
near the Villa Creek garden, where deputies found evidence of a man's
clothing.