US CA: CREWS CLEAR OLD POT FIELDS

A spice rack, tortillas, incense, canned vegetables, chopsticks,
fertilizer, a tiny Buddha statue and hand-carved wooden crosses have
all been found at marijuana growing operations on the Stanislaus
National Forest.

They've been left behind at camps set up by pot growers working for
organized drug cartels.

Heather Maffucci, a law enforcement officer with the forest's Summit
Ranger District, has been conducting pot busts on forest land for the
past 17 years.

"This one grow out by Groveland had this beautiful full-size bed made
out of cedar," she said, adding that the bed's mattress was made of
burlap sacks stuffed with leaves and pine needles.

So after the pot plants are pulled, where does all the trash go?

It sits there. Sometimes for years.

"We have gardens from 1999 that probably still need to be cleaned
up," said Stanislaus Patrol Capt. Jay Power.

At the end of last week, a Black Hawk helicopter from the California
National Guard in Sacramento airlifted several bundles of trash from
some of the old busts.

The helicopter, with two 53-foot blades, flew into a Long Barn-area
landing pad on Friday with irrigation hoses, small gas tanks, a card
table, garden hedges and a camouflage tarp dangling from a 150-foot rope.

Six marijuana sites were cleaned up last week. Two, on the Groveland
Ranger District, were cleaned by hand on Wednesday while the
helicopter helped remove trash Thursday and Friday from four sites on
the Me-Wuk Ranger District.

"Using a helicopter like this hasn't been done for a while," Power said.

Between six and nine sites still must be cleaned up. Power hopes the
helicopter will be available in December or January to assist with those jobs.

Nearly 30,000 plants were eradicated from 20 gardens this year on the
Stanislaus, both in Tuolumne and Mariposa counties.

During the past six years, 3.1 million marijuana plants have been
harvested from national forest lands statewide, according to the U.S.
Forest Service.

California leads the nation in the amount of pot grown on federal lands.

When Stanislaus employees go in for a drug bust with a state-funded
Campaign Against Marijuana Planting team, all they remove from the
plantations is the pot and any evidence, like a backpack, gun or cell phone.

That means all trash, furniture and other items left at the grow
sites remain until they can be taken to a dump.

"It has really taken a toll on wildlife," Maffucci said.

Bears have bitten into glass jars and cans, tearing their jaws.

"It's like a big, squishy piece of candy to them," she said.