POT PLANT STANDS OUT

As pot operations go, this one impressed even the agents who shut it
down and arrested the six people who ran it.

It wasn't just the numbers: A facility south of Modesto that could
produce about $8 million worth of marijuana annually. Or the 2,000
plants seized. Or the53 pounds of dope found ready to be packed and
sold at a street value of $4,000 a pound.

(They could have packaged it in smaller amounts, labeled it as "value
added" and charged even more. Hey, it works with baby carrots.)

No, what set this pot plant apart from the rest, in Stanislaus County
at least, was its sheer scope and complexity.

This one had all the sophistication of a well-honed Humboldt County
operation, and those folks are the experts.

It had everything, including the business cliche of location,
location, location, and when it comes to growing marijuana, just
about anywhere will do. Drug dealers harvest the stuff in national
forests and on private wild lands.

In 1998, I covered the raid of a lab in an industrial park on
Winmoore Way in Ceres. Five years later, authorities raided another
lab in the same building, totally unrelated to the 1998 lab. At least
it was zoned for light industry.

More often, drug agents will find inner-city homes converted to
hydroponic pot farms complete with watering and lighting systems.

One of three things usually leads to the bust: Neighbors notice
increased traffic in and out of the homes and at odd hours of the
night. Or they'll notice the smell from the tasting room. And they
might notice a huge spike in their utility bills because the pot
growers were stealing their power. That's the one meriting a call to
the police.

The pot farm raided Monday avoided most of the pitfalls that
generally expose others.

"In this particular operation, they located themselves in an area so
remote that it had the appearance of being defunct," said Modesto
police Lt. Clinton Raymer, who heads the multijurisdictional
Stanislaus Drug Enforcement Agency. "From the outside, it looked like
an old chicken processing plant. They left it in run-down condition."

Inside, a different story.

"Where we talk about technology and advancement is where they upped
the ante, stepped up their game," Raymer said. "What they'd done made
it far superior to what we've seen in other places."

These herbalists had separated the building into several rooms - all
sheetrocked and each used for a different stage of growing. They also
turned it into a two-story facility, growing the plants on the upper
floor while processing and packaging the weed on the lower level.

"It reminds me of an assembly line process where these guys had
developed their own assembly line," Raymer said.

And since pot farmers need to eat and take periodic potty breaks like
anyone else ... "they had a cooking area and restrooms," Raymer said.
"The only things missing were the bedrooms to sleep in."

Who knows? A miniature Motel 6 might have been part of their grander
plans. I mean, it's not like they ran this past the county's planning
department for approval.

"They were still constructing more flooring inside the property,"
Raymer said. "They were still building and expanding out."

It had a complex irrigation system, and a skilled electrician wired
the building for specialized growing lights, complete with breaker
boxes and outlets, he said.

"They had a 150-kilowatt diesel generator - the same-sized engine as
a diesel truck," he said.

Modesto Irrigation District spokeswoman Melissa Williams said150
kilowatts is enough to power 25 average-sized Modesto homes during
peak summer use.

"It was huge," Raymer said.

Too big, as it turned out. And way too loud. In fact, the noisy
diesel generator running 24-7 is what tipped off someone to the
operation. But they'd thought of that, too, Raymer said.

"They had another generator there, too - a newer model," he said.
"That second one is basically a silent-running generator about to be
up and running."

Had they been able to get the silent one going before they got
busted, there's no telling how long they could have continued and how
much pot they could have produced.

"It was a very well-concealed operation other than the (diesel)
generator," he said.

Investigators continued their work Wednesday by serving other search
warrants outside Stanislaus County. The six defendants are from the
Bay Area. All were at the pot operation when agents raided it Monday.

The U.S. attorney in Fresno will have first dibs on prosecuting the
case, since federal agents were involved.

"If not," Raymer said, "we'll take it."

The drug agency, he said, got more than a successful raid.

"They find new ways to hide it, and we find new ways to uncover it," he said.