Agents bust second big pot grow

Published: September 8, 2007



More than 1,000 marijuana plants were confiscated
Thursday from a large pot growing operation in rural
Yamhill. There was evidence that caretakers had hastily
fled the scene.
Photo courtesy YCINT.

By PAUL DAQUILANTE
Of the News-Register

YAMHILL - The Yamhill County Interagency Narcotics Team continued its assault on rural marijuana-growing operations Thursday by seizing 1,103 plants with an estimated street value of $1.1 million. The grow was discovered on Weyerhaeuser timberland in the Hannah Creek area, northwest of Yamhill.

The raid comes on the heels of one in which agents seized 2,388 plants with an estimated street value of $2.4 million. That grow, the largest reflected in News-Register archives, was discovered on national forest land north of Grand Ronde.

And Capt. Rob Edgell of the McMinnville police said, "We're not done."

No arrests have yet been made in connection with Thursday's bust. The earlier bust has produced one arrest so far, that of Evodio Abarca-Caciano, 41, of San Jose, Calif.

Abarca was lodged in the Yamhill County Jail, without bail, on six counts of manufacture of marijuana. He's also been hit with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold, putting him up for eventual deportation.

Forest patrol deputy Ron Wellborn of the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office was tipped to the Yamhill grow by a citizen, and Edgell said he had every right to be concerned.

"It's not a matter of stumbling into 50 plants where you have Joe Schmuck coming every other weekend," he said. "You're wandering into these 2,000- to 3,000-plant grows where you have people with guns watching it."

Wellborn contacted YCINT and it led to a raid involving multiple agencies. They were hoping to catch the caretakers on site, but they had fled their camp, apparently in great haste.

"There was evidence they had just been there," Edgell said. "There were fresh footprints.

"There was a kitchen area. They had been cooking meals."

He said the noise of approaching vehicles no doubt tipped them off.

"The area is so rural and so quiet that you can hear vehicles rolling in," Edgell said. "And as soon as these people hear anything, they run."

In addition to the sheriff's office, YCINT was assisted by the police departments in Beaverton, Hillsboro, McMinnville and Newberg, sheriff's offices in Yamhill and Washington counties, Westside Interagency Narcotics Team, Oregon State Police and Oregon National Guard Counter Drug Support Program.

"It takes a lot of manpower to do these," Edgell said. "The harvesting takes a long time and there's a high safety risk. That's why we pull in other drug teams and law enforcement agencies."

In addition to being a site of drug production, distribution and consumption, Oregon also serves as a transfer point for controlled substances being smuggled into neighboring states and Canada. According to the Department of Justice, there are 121 drug-trafficking organizations - DTOs in law enforcement jargon - known to be operating in Oregon at present. And the department says a number of them have international connections.

"This year and last year, we're finding more of these DTOs operating in Yamhill County," Edgell said. "In years past, it was personal marijuana grows. Now we're finding these grows."

The department estimates more than half of the documented DTOs are led by locally based Anglos. It says most of the rest appear to be under Latino leadership.

Frequently, Latino DTOs have interstate and international connections reaching south to production facilities in Mexico, the department said.

As manufacturing and trafficking of marijuana increases in Oregon, so does abuse of the drug on the street. According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Oregon ranked in the top eight nationally for marijuana use among those 12 and up in 2003-04.

Oregon's temperate climate, excellent soil and extensive rural and forested areas facilitate the outdoor cultivation of marijuana. Large outdoor growing operations have been discovered on timber company lands as well as Forest Service, state Department of Forestry and Bureau of Land Management tracts.

Sometimes referred to as "gardens," the grows typically feature intricate watering systems that block and redirect water from a local stream or creek through irrigation tubing. A 1,000-plant grow requires about 5,000 gallons a day.

Workers who maintain such grows pollute waterways, damage trees and kill wildlife, authorities say.

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