Pubdate: Tue, 21 Aug 2012
Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA)
Copyright: 2012 North County Times
Contact: http://www.nctimes.com/app/forms/letters/index.php
Website: http://www.nctimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080
Author: Teri Figueroa

MORE THAN 500 MARIJUANA FARMS FOUND LOCALLY

Although no San Diego County sites were targeted in a recent 
multistate crackdown on marijuana farms on public lands, authorities 
have found more than 500 illicit marijuana farms in the county since 
2007, including one within walking distance of Cal State San Marcos, 
according to the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego.

The local federal prosecutors office highlighted the busts in the 
county over the past five years on the same day federal officials in 
western states announced the culmination of a multiagency operation 
known as Mountain Sweep, which targeted marijuana farms on public 
lands in California, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

As part of Mountain Sweep, federal officials seized about 578,000 
plants from those seven states since July 1. None of the marijuana 
farms found were in San Diego County.

But in the past five years, drug enforcement agents in San Diego 
County have seized 1.5 million marijuana plants with an estimated 
value of about $3 billion, according to the U.S. attorney's office in 
San Diego.

Local agents have found illicit farms in dense forest and park areas 
around the county, including farms near Palomar Mountain and the 
Cleveland National Forest, according to the statement from the local 
U.S. attorney's office.

The statement indicated that some of marijuana grows were found in 
agricultural areas between avocado groves.

Authorities have also found makeshift living areas among destroyed 
natural lands, as well as "shotgun shells, miles of discarded drip 
irrigation lines, scores empty plastic containers for illegal 
fertilizers, bug and weed sprays, and rat poisons smuggled across the 
border from Mexico," according to the statement.

"Also part of the sullied landscape were discarded stoves and propane 
canisters left behind from months of camping during the five-month 
growing season that ends in October," the statement read. "Agents 
have found car and motorcycle engines once used by growers to charge 
cellphone batteries pollute the landscape. And trash. Lots of trash."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom