THE CAMPAIGN TO WEED OUT GROWERS:

State's Pot Raiders Have Seized Nearly 100,000 Plants This Year

MORGAN HILL -- As the helicopter clattered down a narrow canyon, Special
Agent Sonya Barna gestured toward a break in the forest canopy where the
ground cover shimmered with hues of blue and green.

"When direct sun hits a marijuana garden, you see that blue-green
iridescence?" she explained. "It really stands out against the trees, and
it's a sure sign there's a garden there."

Barna would soon be on the ground, leading the 144th raid so far this year
by the state Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP.

Agents have been in the field, carrying out the raids, only since Aug. 2.
The brevity of the offensive has two sources: a desire to go after the
growers close to harvest time, when it hurts the most, and CAMP's own
limited funds. Still, the agents had confiscated nearly 100,000 plants as
of last week. The Attorney General's Office estimated the street value of
those crops at $391 million.

With a harvest season extending well into October in some parts of the
state, CAMP seems to be on pace to eradicate more than the 136,000 plants
taken out last year.

How much more is out there?

"I couldn't guess," said Gil Van Attenhoven, CAMP's operations commander.
"California is one of the leading sources of high-grade marijuana in the
world."

What he does know is that his agents are finding bigger gardens on neatly
terraced hillsides with sophisticated drip-irrigation systems.

"With the exception of Humboldt County, where we're still dealing with
small growers, in much of the state it's not just a couple of guys out
there growing marijuana anymore," Van Attenhoven said. "It's Mexican
national drug organizations. These are commercial operations."

In recent years, said Attorney General Bill Lockyer, drug cartels have
seized control of much of California's illicit methamphetamine production.
Now they're moving into marijuana cultivation with the same brutal
efficiency, he said.

They also steal crops from small growers "and are generally capable of more
violent behaviors that weren't associated with local growers in the past,"
Lockyer said.

Typically, cartels recruit poor Mexicans and install them in forested areas
of California with the equipment they need, investigators have found. If
growers can bring in a crop, they'll get a big cash bonus. The previous
week, CAMP confiscated more than 10,000 plants in another Santa Clara
County raid. The growers got away.

"These growers have been out here since April or May," Van Attenhoven said.
"They know the terrain like the back of their hands. They're in excellent
shape and armed. So, they can be tough people to reckon with if you're able
to get close to them."

That doesn't happen often, however. It was an exception when federal agents
arrested two Mexican nationals last Tuesday in a large garden near Highland
in the San Bernardino National Forest. Usually, the growers are gone by the
time a raiding party arrives.

In 17 years of CAMP operations, agents have never exchanged gunfire with
growers. Some helicopters have been fired upon, and Van Attenhoven's agents
frequently find assault rifles and other firearms in growers' camps.

Booby traps aren't uncommon. Agents find trip wires rigged to a rat trap
with a shotgun shell or pits covered with foliage. In Fresno County last
month, they confiscated a grenade with a trip wire strapped to a propane
tank. On the North Coast, agents have encountered fishing line with hooks
dangling at eye level.

Such hazards were on the minds of Barna's agents last week as she and Santa
Clara County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Garcia led the team up a well-used path
to the marijuana patch seen from the air.

CAMP operations use interagency teams. Besides the state Department of
Justice and local Sheriff's Department, this one included representatives
of the U.S. Forest Service, California Highway Patrol and California
National Guard, along with several reserve police officers and an officer
on release time from the Sacramento City Unified School District.

This garden had been reported by two hunters. The site was in the Santa
Cruz Mountains just west of Morgan Hill in an area dotted with horse
ranches and multimillion-dollar homes.

The day before, Garcia and another deputy had done a reconnaissance of the
area posing as dove hunters and had seen a man hiding behind some bushes
near what they estimated were 1,000 marijuana plants.

As the team crept toward the garden, Barna nearly tripped over a black
rubber hose.

"It's his water line," she whispered. "We usually follow these right into
the garden."

Moments later, agents threaded their way between rows of evenly spaced
marijuana plants, casting wary glances at the surrounding forest for any
sign of the grower. There were none. But there was another surprise. About
two-thirds of the crop had been cut and removed since Garcia and his
partner were there the day before.

"He got spooked," Garcia said, "but not enough to just abandon the place.
That's what they usually do."

Under some bushes, Garcia found fertilizer containers, buckets, hoses, soda
bottles and a two-day-old copy of the San Jose Mercury News.

"We'll get prints off those, so we'll have some leads to follow and a
chance to get this guy," Garcia said.

In all, 307 plants were confiscated, bundled up with the growers' equipment
and helicoptered off the hillside. Later, Garcia took the plants to a
garbage hauler to be mulched and mixed with garbage headed for a landfill.

"You can bet we stay there and watch until all that's disposed of," Garcia
said.