LAKE COUNTY — Authorities found almost 5,000 marijuana plants on Lake County Supervisor Rob Brown”s 300-acre ranch in Kelseyville Monday, starting off the second week of annual marijuana eradication maneuvers.
The find adds to a reported 53,472 plants found and destroyed during the first three days of eradication efforts that started July 7 according to a Monday Lake County Sheriff”s Department (LCSD) press release written by Detective Lt. Dave Garzoli. The majority of the finds were in areas around the Highland Springs Reservoir, the Glen Eden Trail head and White Rock Mountain, according to the release.
“It makes it personal when it”s on your property,” Brown said.
Authorities destroyed more than half a million marijuana plants on public and private land in Lake County last year, setting a state record, according to the release. The LCSD conducts the annual effort in conjunction with the Lake County Narcotics Task Force, the Lakeport Police Department, The California Department of Fish and Game, and Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), a state multi-jurisdictional task force.
Each site had evidence of Mexican organized crime, according to the release, including all-Spanish magazines, and groceries with Spanish labels and notebooks with Spanish writing.
“Over the years we have been doing this ? not only us but statewide ? we have found that they are paid a sum of money to tend the gardens. Often times they are brought here at night blindfolded and dropped off in the middle of nowhere. This is not indicative of a small-time, local grower, it”s indicative of a much larger operation, and that”s clearly why the numbers are what they are,” Garzoli said
Brown said his wife called the LCSD July 9 when a worker helping clear brush for Brown”s 20 buffalo to graze found chicken wire.
“He looked up and saw a pot plant, and about that time a Mexican guy came running out of the brush yelling and screaming at him in Spanish,” Brown said.
The man did not appear to be armed, Brown said, but ammunition for a 12-gage shotgun was found later among tents, supplies, drip-line to water the plants and four separate farms, each bearing roughly 1,000 marijuana plants. Candles associated with religious ceremonies were also found at the site, some of them lit, according to Garzoli.
Pointing to the rolling foothills and steep terrain covered with dense brush at the base of Camelback Ridge on the southwestern end of his property, Brown said the camps and fields of marijuana on approximately 100 acres of his property were not easy to find.
“It”s hard enough to spot a 1,200-pound buffalo, much less a 120-pound Mexican farmer,” Brown said.
Garzoli said a helicopter was brought out Monday to investigate, which was the first day one was available. A total of 4,887 marijuana plants were found, pulled up and buried, which Garzoli said destroys the plants.
Countywide eradication will continue through the summer, according to the LCSD release.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
