UKIAH, Calif. – At a special Friday event local, state and federal officials offered a glimpse into a multiagency operation to fight the escalating problem of illicit marijuana grows – and the accompanying violence and ecological destruction – on public lands.

Operation Full Court Press is taking place in Lake, Mendocino, Colusa, Glenn, Tehama and Trinity counties, with emphasis on the Mendocino National Forest, according to US Attorney Melinda Haag, who spoke at the Friday morning press conference at the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds in Ukiah. Many of the details surrounding Operation Full Court Press are still not being made public, as they're considered part of the investigation, according both to Haag and Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman – the lone sheriff of the six involved in Operation Full Court Press to appear at the Friday event.

Haag said drug traffickers are abusing the public lands and making them dangerous for visitors, possibly engaging in human trafficking to provide a labor force for the grows and using marijuana growing practices that pollute the environment.

Officials would not disclose the time frame for the operation as well as other specifics in order to protect the work of eradicating the grows. However, the numbers they did share pointed to a large and aggressive attack on illegal growing on public lands that is believed to be controlled by criminal drug trafficking organizations, which have no qualms about using violence and which, law enforcement officials said, have made the threat to the public as great as it has ever been.

As of Friday morning, Operation Full Court Press had gone into 56 grow sites in the six counties and eradicated approximately 468,950 marijuana plants, with an estimated street value of more than $928 million, officials reported. The operation also has netted 102 arrests – 89 of which were persons booked on various federal and state charges to include marijuana, firearm, and immigration violations, while 13 were foreign nationals detained on administrative immigration violations who will be processed for removal from the United States. Altogether, the operation has seized 1,510 pounds of processed marijuana, 18 grams of methamphetamine, 22 Xanax pills, $15,981 U.S. currency, 32 weapons and 11 vehicles, according to statistics provided by the California Department of Justice on Friday.

Operation Full Court Press consists of more than 300 personnel from 27 local, state, and federal agencies. Participating agencies include the sheriffs' and district attorneys' offices of each of the six focus area counties, Bureau of Land Management, California Department of Justice, California Highway Patrol, Drug Enforcement Administration US Fish and Wildlife, US Forest Services, the Northern California and Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, California National Guard, Civil Air Patrol, Department of Homeland Security/Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the US Attorney's Offices for the Northern and Eastern Districts.

Just as important as shutting down the criminal element is stopping the damage to the land itself, which has been heavily impacted by growing practices in the illicit gardens, officials said. In the course of the operations 23 tons of trash, 22 miles of irrigation line, 2,171 pounds of fertilizer and 57 pounds of pesticides were removed from grow sites, officials reported. In addition, Haag said 13 diversion dams used as garden water sources have been taken. Officials estimated that removing such nonnative material – the first stage of the restoration process – can cost up to $11,000 per acre. In the vast Mendocino National Forest, which runs into all of the six participating counties and, at just over 900,000 acres, is roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island – the members of the public who want to use the forest and the animals that live in the wild have been heavily impacted, Haag said. “This is an intolerable situation and it has to be stopped,â€