FOREST SERVICE UPROOTS POT FARM

PALMDALE - U.S. Forest Service Agents and narcotics detectives from the Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department spent Monday and Tuesday uprooting
approximately 4,000 marijuana plants found in the Angeles National Forest.

During a routine aerial check of the area on Aug. 18, Forest Service pilots
discovered the contraband flora off of the Angeles Forest Highway, about 10
miles south of Palmdale. Deputies and officers from the
multi-jurisdictional Marijuana Eradication Team spent Monday and Tuesday
combing through the forest and uprooting the plants. The Forest Service and
MET team conduct helicopter checks on a periodic basis and say they
regularly find hidden marijuana farms.

"We normally - during the course of the summer - will go out looking for it
and we probably find about 10 (farms) per year," said Rita Wears, special
agent with the U.S. Forest Service. "They're not usually this big."

This week's haul wasn't the biggest agencies have uncovered in recent
years, but it wasn't the smallest, either.

MET team members recalled finding one farm of about 10,000 plants in 1993
or 1994.

Wears said the clandestine farm discovered last week covered about 25 acres
of federal land.

As of Wednesday, officials had uprooted about 4,000 plants. Wears estimated
a street value of about $2.4 million for that much marijuana.

The plants were hauled out of the area in helicopters and loaded on trucks.
They will be taken to a remote place in the forest and burned.

Narcotics deputies are still seeking the identities of the illegal farmer
or farmers.