LOS PADRES POT BUST TWICE AS LARGE AS EXPECTED

8/13/99 The largest marijuana drug bust in Santa Barbara County since 1989
keeps getting bigger.

As law enforcement agents from local, state and federal agencies continued
to eradicate an illegal marijuana garden in Los Padres National Forest
Wednesday, the yield from the original find and the discovery of five
smaller gardens have doubled early estimates.

By day's end Thursday, 10,009 marijuana plants had been cut from the
original garden - located along Bear Creek, just south of Highway 154 near
Lake Cachuma- and 398 plants had been found in the five newly-discovered
gardens nearby.

The original garden was first discovered in late June by Santa Barbara
County Sheriff's Department aerial reconnaissance.

The new total puts the estimated street value at more than $30 million.

"As I understand they're continuing to work today so those numbers will
probably rise," said Kathy Goode, spokeswoman for the Los Padres National
Forest.

Before agents raided the garden Tuesday morning and after a month-long
investigation of the site, authorities believed they had a sizable garden
estimated at between 5,000 to 7,000 plants, with a street value topping $15
million.

The original garden - less than a mile off Highway 154 near Paradise Road -
was too treacherous to reach by foot, so about 40 law enforcement personnel
were transported by helicopter to the garden area Wednesday and Thursday,
where they cut the crop with machetes and bundled it for transport.

The bundles were put into nets and then airlifted onto flatbed trucks parked
at the Live Oak Campgrounds. They were then transported to an undisclosed
location to be burned and destroyed.

The discovery is the biggest bust in the Los Padres National Forest since
1989 when 13,000 plants were discovered near Cuyama.

When authorities raided the garden early Tuesday afternoon two men, believed
to be Mexican nationals, escaped into the forest and remain at large.

The two men left a camp with a tent, a stove, and provisions to last a
couple months.

They also left fingerprints at the scene that may lead to arrests, a
Sheriff's Department officials said.

Forestry officials said the crop was about a month from full maturation of
the tops, or "buds," and harvesting of the mature crop would have been
within the next two months.

The raid was a cooperative effort with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's
Department, Department of Justice, Santa Barbara Police, Santa Maria Police,
and the U.S. Forest Service.