NEW POWER PLANT

Burning Nearly A Ton Of Confiscated Grow House Cannabis Will Light You
Up But Won't Get You High

For a while this morning, TECO customers had a new fuel powering their
lights.

Weed.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office deputies burned nearly a ton of the
leafy substance at the county's waste-to-energy plant on Falkenburg Road
at 11 a.m., according to HCSO spokesman J.D. Callaway. TECO buys
electricity from the plant.

There's no need to worry about anyone getting high from the process,
said Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Maj. Albert Frost.

"It's destroyed very quickly," he said. "We cut off a certain area,
where no one can go in except for law enforcement, very tightly, highly
supervised. You're not going to drive by and get high on Falkenburg Road."

The marijuana was seized between February and July of last year during
"Operation Indoor Outlaw," a major sweep of grow houses in Hillsborough
and Manatee counties, Callaway said. Deputies say the marijuana, which
is contained in 300 boxes, has a street value of $6 million.

Deputies dismantled about 65 marijuana grow houses during that
operation, according to Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee.

About 50 locations were targeted. Investigators seized about 5,800
plants and about 3,200 pounds of marijuana from houses stretching from
Tampa to Thonotosassa.

The amount of drugs at each location, like the houses, ranged from
modest to expansive. A $345,000 house in Odessa owned by Patrick Early,
32, for instance, contained 72 pounds of marijuana, investigators said.
A $140,000 Tampa house owned by Amaury Gonzalez, 45, contained 33
marijuana plants, detectives said. Both homeowners are charged with
felony marijuana trafficking, among other charges.

About 70 people have been arrested since February, Gee said. Some are
cooperating with law enforcement.

While against the law to grow pot, burning it provided a good deal of
energy, according to John Wilson, vice president of business development
for Recycled Energy Development, a Westmont, Ill.-based waste-to-energy
company.

Burning a ton of pot, he said, would "light 40,000 100-watt light bulbs
for an hour.