COUNTY REACHES RECORD HIGH IN POT PLANT BUSTS

It's one milestone they'd just as soon not reach, thank you all the
same. But county residents don't have a choice in acknowledging that
2007 has now set a record for the number of pot plants busted in their
county. Thanks to a "monster" find yesterday, which officers were
still burning and hacking last night, this year's total of 77,320 far
outstrips 2001's estimated 40,000 plants.

That's the bad news. The worst news is that the illegal intoxicant's
prime harvest months -- September and October -- have yet to turn over
on the calendar. Which means the all-time high will only get higher as
camo-clad law enforcement hunters search and destroy even more of the
lucrative bud in coming months.

A routine call to check out a small fire led Merced County Sheriff's
investigators to the more than 40,000 plants on Wednesday.

The bust occurred in a small farmhouse in the 1400 block of Healy
Road, near the intersection of Vassar Avenue outside southeast Merced.
The plants, some of them more than 12 feet tall, were found in a large
cornfield behind the house. A ramshackle red barn contained more than
93 pounds of finished product, according to Neil Compston, task force
commander of the Merced Multi-Agency Narcotics Task Force.

The volume of marijuana found at the compound is so vast that
investigators will likely spend the rest of today discarding all of
the plants, Compston said. With each plant valued from $2,500 to
$3,000, the total value of the crop could exceed $120 million. "We're
not even close to getting done," Compston said, as members of the task
force hacked away at the illicit plants with machetes. "This is a monster."

This year, task force officials say they have already destroyed 36,420
plants, along with 900 plants discovered in a rural Dos Palos
cornfield earlier this week. Added to Wednesday's bust, that brings
the total amount of marijuana plants destroyed in Merced County to
more than 77,320 in 2007 -- compared to some 40,000 plants destroyed
six years ago.

The pot was discovered after firefighters with the Merced County Fire
Department arrived at the farm house around 7:45 a.m. to investigate a
small fire, according to Sgt. Jim Pacheco. They were met at the door
by a Latino man -- but the man and another occupant refused to let
firefighters in the back of the house to put out the fire, Pacheco
said.

The firefighters then called the Merced County Sheriff's Department
for assistance. Once deputies arrived at the scene to help the
firefighters get in, the occupants still tried to distract them by
saying the fire was in another location -- even though smoke was
visible in back of the house, Pacheco said.

By that time investigators were able to smell the marijuana, Pacheco
said, and the two men took off running. Although one of the suspects
was able to flee on foot, investigators arrested Jesus Cervantes
Jasso, 44. Jasso was booked into the Merced County Jail on charges of
cultivation and possession for sale marijuana, in addition to
resisting arrest.

Pacheco said investigators also believe that others may have been on
the premises -- but ran as soon as they heard the commotion. Once
investigators obtained a search warrant, in addition to the marijuana
in the cornfield, they found a stash of several guns, including an SKS
assault rifle. One of the barns on the property also included a room
for drying and packaging the marijuana.

Compston said investigators are still looking into whether Jasso was
renting the property or had been hired by someone else to cultivate
the crop. He said the bust fit his predictions that investigators
would break the record for marijuana plants destroyed in Merced County
this year. "We're taking more of it off the street," Compston said.
"We're putting a dent in (the grower's) pocketbook."

And, in the process, setting a record Mercedians would just as soon
not claim.