GCSO seizes $6 million in pot plants

Field of Russian olive trees hides 4,000 plants near Saddle Mountain Lake

GRANT COUNTY — About 4,000 marijuana plants were seized in a field of Russian olive trees near Saddle Mountain Lake Tuesday as peak harvest season for the Grant County area moves into full swing.

The street value of the 4,000 plants is about $6 million or approximately $1,500 per plant, said Chief Deputy Courtney Conklin of the Grant County Sheriff's Office.

The plants were some of the tallest that have been found in the area, with many reaching heights of nine and 10 feet.

So far about 11,000 plants have been found in Grant County this year, which is about 10 times the number found in 2004, Conklin said.

Officers will be searching for more pot plants into October, and they expect to recover plenty during the fall corn harvest when farmers usually begin finding them in their fields.

The U.S. border with Canada has become harder to cross for those smuggling pot from British Columbia so growing operations have become more common in areas such as Grant and Chelan counties, Conklin said.

This latest aerial discovery, located from an airplane by an experienced spotter for the GCSO, fit the profile of previous finds and was located just south of Highway 24 within the Hanford Reach National Monument, just east of the Vernita Bridge.

Conklin said the operation used similar methods in other pot fields discovered in the county earlier this month, but there has been no proven link between any of the grows.

Over 20 drug cops from the Washington State Patrol, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Guard assisted members of the GCSO Interlocal Drug Enforcement Team in removing the plants from the area after they were initially found last week.

No arrests were made Tuesday and there are currently no suspects. There were no weapons found in the area, but there were sprayers, buckets, shovels and other signs of people who had been farming the plants, Conklin said.

The pot plants were subsequently destroyed at different incinerators located in the county.

"We haven't even put a dent in the county, because so far we've only been in the southern part," Conklin said. "When you put the heat on in one part of the county they move to another."

He said that the GCSO spotter has been doing a great job at finding the plants and as they put in more flight time in airplanes and helicopters, more plants will be found.