Pot growers find privacy they seek in Chelan County

WENATCHEE — North-central Washington has long been famous for its apple and cherry trees. Now the region is starting to become known for another cash crop: marijuana.

Last summer and fall, five large marijuana plots were found, four in Chelan County and one in Douglas County. The estimated street value: $25.6 million.

One of the finds, near Lily Lake south of Wenatchee, was worth $7 million, a record for Chelan County.

Investigators believe the fields were part of an extensive pot-growing operation across the West that relies on migrant farmworkers who guard the plants.

Authorities believe the operation is based in California and has been drawn to north-central Washington in part because of the region's expansive forest cover.

"We feel that this is a pretty substantial organized-crime ring," Chelan County Sheriff Mike Harum told The Wenatchee World. "It's going to take the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency] and FBI to solve it."

Douglas County Sheriff Dan LaRoche thinks the crackdown on U.S. border crossings after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks also has led more marijuana growers to plant in Washington.

Marijuana has been grown illegally in the region for decades, but the operations were small, with usually one person behind them. Now, the fields are large and use lined irrigation and watering systems, a setup often seen in top pot-growing areas in California and Canada.

In north-central Washington, the plants are being cultivated in heavy timber at high elevations.

Growers "have been able to get a foothold here because of the lack of [government] funding" to pay for law enforcement. With 3,000 square miles of mostly mountainous, forested terrain to patrol in Chelan County, it's been difficult to track down marijuana fields, Harum said.

"If you look at the entire county, it's pretty easy to hide 10,000 plants in the forest," he said.

There are strong incentives for migrant workers to get involved. They can make substantially more than they would in the orchards, Harum said.

Until a few years ago, Washington state was hardly on the map when it came to marijuana growing. It ranked 28th in the nation in 1995 in the numbers of plants seized from outdoor crops, based on numbers provided by the DEA to the Sourcebook of Criminal Statistics.

Northern California and British Columbia were considered the pot-growing leaders. Now, Washington is in the top 10 states, thanks in part to more marijuana being grown on the eastern slopes of the Cascades.

The state's known pot harvest, based on seizures, doubled from 66,521 plants in 2003 to 132,941 plants in 2004, according to the State Patrol.

The largest marijuana seizure in Washington's history came last summer, when agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration seized three fields containing some 60,800 plants in the closed section of the Yakama Indian Reservation near Satus Pass and Highway 97.

Most of the 25,685 plants seized in north-central Washington came from five large busts in Chelan and Douglas counties between Aug. 20 and Oct. 28. No arrests have been made in any of those finds.

"I think there is a lot more out there than what we got," said Sgt. Doug Jones of the Columbia River Drug Task Force, a regional narcotics team based in Wenatchee that focuses on breaking down large drug operations.

Harum and other local officials say nabbing pot growers is hard.

The plants are under heavy tree cover, making it difficult to spot from the air. The locations are hidden, but often near main highways, which makes them easy for planters to reach.

The Chelan County Sheriff's Office has increased its marijuana-eradication budget to $25,000 this year from $2,000 last year.

That will pay for more helicopter flights to search, and more investigative work to find the growers. But Harum said investigators need to spend more time in the field searching, and more time on investigations and task-force work with the DEA, FBI and other agencies.

If 2005 is a repeat of last year, it won't be law enforcement that finds the growing operations. Of the five large fields busted in the region last year, four were initially discovered by hikers or hunters. That presents a danger to the public.

Forest Service employees are warned routinely about stumbling across the crops, which sometimes are protected by gunmen, said Greg Thayer, a U.S. Forest Service employee who manages recreational activities in the Wenatchee National Forest.

U.S. Forest Service Patrol Capt. Jeff Roundy said the fields are sometimes rigged with booby traps intended to scare or injure.