LOS PADRES POT BUST AMOUNT GREATER THAN THOUGHT

Having now pulled up more than 10,400 marijuana plants, a force of law
enforcement officers continued Thursday to follow a trail of post along the
Bear Creek drainage and other sites in the Los Padres National Park near the
top of the San Marcos Pass.

An estimated 10,409 plants, with a street value of $3,000 each - totaling
more than $31 million - have been eradicated in the past two days, according
to reports from the U.S. Forest Service and Santa Barbara County Narcotics
Task Force.

Eradication continues today. The plants are to be burned at an undisclosed
location in the forest.

Aerial surveillance first located the bright green marijuana in the brush
and oaks in late June. Authorities watched a long time before 40 people
raided the primary location Tuesday morning.

The raiders flushed out two farmers living at the Bear Creek wilderness site
in tents. They fled, leaving behind a three-month supply of food and
evidence indicating they were Mexican nationals.

This series of marijuana fields yielded 10,009 plants.

Thursday the raiders found a second marijuana plantation believed to be a
completely separate operation.

The force eradicated another 398 plants in small plots in an area from
Paradise to Lake Cachuma.

These plants were "strung out" over the area, according to Sgt. Stan
Mathiasen, narcotics task force chief, and Marion Matthews, law enforcement
officer for the U.S. Forest Service.

Wednesday, Mathiasen called the large plantation eradication project "The
Really Big One." Then, the estimate was between 5,000 and 7,000 plants with
a value of $15 million.

This haul still isn't the biggest in Santa Barbara county history - 13,000
plants were taken in one swoop a few years back. But it has now topped a
haul last month in Los Osos in neighboring San Luis Obispo County, where an
estimated 7,200 plants worth $21 million were taken.

Despite yellowjackets, poison oak and rugged terrain, no injuries or major
problems have been reported and no booby traps have been found.

The eradication/investigation is being aided by a helicopter from the
state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.