ALAMEDA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE NEARING A TOTAL OF 30,000 POT PLANTS
SEIZED THIS YEAR

Before this year, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office had never
seized more than 10,000 marijuana plants in one year.

The department now stands near the brink of hitting an all-time high
of 30,000 seized plants. Two recent related busts pushed the total to
26,376 so far this year.

On Sept. 5, deputies seized 1,790 plants from a heavily wooded
location in Southern Alameda County near the Calaveras watershed. The
seized plants had an estimated street value of $5.3 million, said
Sgt. Shawn Peterson, who heads the sheriff's special investigations unit.

A week earlier, deputies seized 1,167 plants from a location less
than 400 yards away.

The two grows had a combined estimated street value of $8.6 million,
police said

The plant-seizure spike this year reflects an exponential increase in
outdoor grow operations statewide, Peterson said, noting that about
10 percent of the plants were seized from indoor grows.

"Outdoors really gives them the room and the area to mass produce," he said.

Peterson attributes the proliferation of outdoor grows to the
infiltration of Mexican drug traffickers taking haven in public and
private rural areas.

Growers are typically paid to monitor sites in remote areas, Peterson
said, adding that food is dropped off for them by plane at locations
sometimes many miles away from the growing site.

In a 7,000-plant bust Aug. 12 near the Santa Clara County border, an
arrested grower told Advertisement deputies he had to hike eight
hours to get his food.

Deputies made no arrests in the Calaveras watershed busts, Peterson
said, but officers found an empty camp where the grower monitored the
adjacent operations.

Peterson said the outdoor grow spike in Alameda County follows a
Mexican border crackdown that began earlier this decade.

Compared with the risk of bringing in what's perceived to be
lower-grade Mexican marijuana, the traffickers "found that it's
easier to drop their people off and drop food off every few weeks,"
Peterson said.

Federal agents led a weeklong 340,000-plant bust at Sequoia National
Forest in early August that typifies the trend, Peterson said.

"The national parks are getting hammered," he said.

He also said California-grown marijuana can be sold out of state at
much higher prices. In some cases, traffickers bring their product
across the Mexican border, then send it back across in a scheme aimed
at occupying border agents with a marijuana bust while more valuable
"white dope," such as methamphetamine, cocaine, or heroine, slips
through in a trailing vehicle.

Another factor in the seizure spike is public awareness that "this
isn't just a few plants growing in someone's backyard," he said.

A witness who spotted a food drop led law enforcement to the
Calaveras watershed.

Peterson said plants up to 14 feet tall were easily spotted from the air.

A saw was needed to chop them down.

"It's unusual to see them get so big and so blatant," he said. "They
usually don't want these to get spotted."

In addition to environmental concerns -- the Calaveras watershed
grows involved damming up creeks to create a water pool from which to
draw irrigation -- the massive grows pose potential public safety
risks, Peterson said, noting that armed growers won't hesitate to
harm hikers or hunters who cross into their farms.

"It's definitely a problem that's probably going to get bigger,"
Peterson said. "We're going to have make sure we continue to take an
aggressive approach to it."