OFFICERS ROOT OUT MARIJUANA PLANTS AT 7 LOCATIONS IN ORANGE COUNTY

HILLSBOROUGH -- Four law enforcement officers tore out 306 marijuana
plants from seven locations this week in Orange County after National
Guard helicopter pilots spotted the marijuana from above.

No arrests have been made in connection with the seizure of the
marijuana plants, and investigators doubt if there will be charges.

"They use four-wheelers to travel to other people's property that they
know is not used much, and they'll grow it so it can't be traced back
to them," said Doug Koehler, and investigator with the Orange County
Sheriff's Office. "Of all our 306 plants, we were not able to draw any
charges off of them."

The estimated street value of the plants was $300,000, Koehler
said.

On Monday, two teams worked in the southern and northern halves of the
county. Each team included one helicopter with two pilots, and an
Orange County sheriff's investigator and an SBI agent working together
on the ground.

The National Guard pilots are trained to spot the distinctive color of
marijuana plants. "It's just a different-colored green," Koehler said.

When the pilots spotted the plants, they used a closed radio frequency
to tell the deputies and agents on the ground where to go to find the
plants. "They lead us in on foot," Koehler said.

Some sites were easy to walk to, such as the one behind a store, but
others required a long hike into the woods through thick brush,
Koehler said.

That site, in the southern part of the county, was so deep in the
woods that Koehler and the SBI agent had to use machetes to hack their
way through the brush to get there, Koehler said.

The biggest patch had 192 plants and was off New Sharon Church Road
northeast of Hillsborough. The smallest patch had three plants and was
off New Hope Church Road between Hillsborough and Chapel Hill.

The pilots and the officers found seven plants off of Hawkins Road and
76 plants off of Breeze Road in the very northern part of the county.

The team in the southern half, which included Investigator Randy
Hawkins of the Orange County Sheriff's Office, also found 12 plants
off Jack Bennett Road off of U.S. 501, six plants off Old Lystra Road,
and 10 plants off U.S. 501 near Dogwood Acres, Koehler said.

None of the sites had been booby-trapped, but the officers had to keep
their eyes open just in case, said Lt. Larry Faucette, who recalled
the time several years ago when he nearly stepped on a long nail
sticking up through a board that had been hidden on the path.

The deputies weren't able to identify any of the people who planted
and tended the marijuana because it was growing on other people's property.

The plants that the deputies and agents pulled up were 3 to 5 feet
tall. "The smaller plants were the ones with the bigger buds,"
Faucette said. "The buds, that's all they use."

The sheriff's office has already destroyed the marijuana by burning it
with diesel fuel, Koehler said.

In 1998, the Orange County Sheriff's Office, with the help of National
Guard helicopter pilots, found and destroyed more than 1,000 plants in
Orange County with a street value of more than $2 million