MADERA MARIJUANA FARM FOUND

MADERA - A helicopter looking for commercial marijuana farms bounced over a
ridge this week in the Madera County mountains, and there below in neat
rows was an estimated $1.7 million worth of the illegal crop.

Pilot Mike Brown used the California Highway Patrol copter's electronic
satellite positioning to pinpoint the location at latitude 37-north,
longitude 119-west.

Madera County Sheriff's Sgt. Darin McMechan scanned the steep and remote
terrain, looking for ground access.

"We'll be back," McMechan promised.

This week's helicopter search was one of the early forays in Madera County
Sheriff John Anderson's plan to use all of the outside resources he can to
discourage the illegal farming. The marijuana garden was the first turned
up this year in Madera County, but McMechan and Brown do not expect it to
be the last.

McMechan didn't say when or how the Sheriff's Department would follow up on
the discovery, but in past summers, deputies have set up ground and air
surveillance, sometimes camping out in the nearby forest to catch the
marijuana farmers.

It will be the Sheriff's Department that cuts and burns the crop. It's part
of Anderson's intensified air-ground effort since taking over in January.

Madera County's specially dedicated Narcotics Enforcement Team includes
four Madera sheriff's deputies along with officers from the Madera and
Chowchilla city police and a Madera County Probation Department officer.

Last summer was "slow" with only seven commercial marijuana gardens raided
in Madera County, McMechan said.

Illegal methamphetamine labs also have been found and "busted" in the
Madera County mountains, but these aren't readily detectable from the air
without tips from someone on the ground, McMechan said.

In past years, he has followed up on tips from Southern California. He made
one arrest in Santa Ana in connection with a Madera County commercial
marijuana plantation.

McMechan is stationed at the Madera County Sheriff's Substation at Bass
Lake. He also participates in helicopter mountain rescue work.

The idea of aerial searching isn't to look into people's back yards; it's
to locate the big plantations, he said.

"It's commercial growing," McMechan said before the CHP helicopter H-40
lifted off from Batterson Fire Station near Highway 41 Thursday. "It's not
for personal use."

McMechan and Brown characterized this week's discovery as a substantial
commercial operation.

McMechan estimated 500 plants, between 3 and 4 feet high. Mature plants
each produce about $3,500 worth of commercial marijuana.

For about an hour, the copter scanned the mountain watersheds and wooded
slopes from the Fresno River to the San Joaquin. The marijuana plantation
about 15 minutes out of Batterson was the only one seen on this flight.

No one was seen on the ground near the site, but Madera County authorities
have the area under surveillance for any sign of the growers.

"They're armed," Brown said about those hired to plant and guard the
marijuana farms. "They cartels hire people to go out there and do all the
dirty work. They sit back and reap the profits."

Before he was elected sheriff, Anderson, the former Central Division CHP
chief, said he wanted to increase cooperation with other law enforcement
agencies.

Keeping the CHP's H-40 in the air costs just under $400 an hour for fuel
and maintenance, Brown said. Funds come from the state agency's annual budget.

"That's what it's here for," Anderson said. "If you register your car,
you're paying for that helicopter. That's the way the program was set up,
to assist local agencies that couldn't afford their own helicopters."

Aerial searches aren't new in California, including Madera County, but
Thursday's flight was Anderson's first use of the Fresno-based CHP copter
to find local marijuana crops.

Last year, National Guard copters conducted marijuana searches over Madera
County as part of multiagency operations.

State CHP and Guard aircraft along with U.S. Forest Service copters will be
enlisted all summer to find marijuana plantations in the Madera County
woods, Anderson promised.

He said he didn't care whether marijuana farmers knew it.

"By now, they're crops in the ground," Anderson said. "They can't move
them."