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Pot farm clean-up complete |
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Monday, 26 November 2007 |
 Law enforcement officers collect marijuana as evidence in the Shepherd Creek raid in July. Authorities recently completed a clean-up of the site, removing fertilizer, camping materials and trash from the one-time marijuana garden. Photo by Mike Gervais By Mike Gervais
Register Staff 11-24-2007
Officials have finally finished up with their post-raid clean-up of Shepherd Creek, where law enforcement teams from across California busted a major marijuana cultivation operation earlier this year.
While all the pot plants were eradicated and removed from the site in the days following the raid in July, it has taken Forest Service, Inyo County Sheriff’s Department and military counter drug task force officials nearly four months to remove the infrastructure used in the growing operation.
The Forest Service removed a “major infrastructure” on Nov. 14 and 15, with assistance from military counter drug task force units and the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department, that was used to grow marijuana at Shepherd Creek, according to a press release from the Forest Service.
Gardens were also located in Little Lake, Hogback Creek and the Baxter Pass area. Those clean-up operations are ongoing.
Crews have been busy removing the marijuana growers’ camps, with campgrounds, tents, trash, human waste and more, as well as poisons, fertilizers, growing equipment and gardening tools and hundreds of yards of plastic hose used to tap into Shepherd Creek to irrigate the crop.
“The infrastructure had been used for multiple years by the growers in this illegal cultivation operation,” states the press release. Because the area had been used for multiple cultivation seasons without detection, the equipment used to maintain the gardens was sophisticated and extensive, making the clean-up operation time- consuming.
In addition to removing all the materials the growers had imported to the site, crews also began rehabilitation work on the landscape, which had been plowed and molded to fit the needs of the illegal plants.
The area where the garden was located in Shepherd Creek Canyon is rocky and steep, and growers terraced the area, making flat corn row-style areas of soil in which to cultivate the plants.
It was back in April that local law enforcement officials became aware ofa major pot growing operation in the Shepherd Creek area, and other locations on public land in Inyo County. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration was notified and a daring raid of the multiple pot farms was planned.
Law enforcement also formed the Sierra Unified Major Marijuana Investigation Team (SUMMIT), consisting of personnel from the Inyo Narcotic Enforcement Team, the DEA, Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (BNE CAMP), the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department, Bishop Police Department, Mono County Sheriff’s Department, Mammoth Lakes Police Department, California Highway Patrol, California Department of Fish and Game and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Back in July, teams set up at the mouth of the canyon and were flown into the gardens in an attempt to apprehend the growers.
Before dawn on July 23, three helicopters air-dropped law enforcement teams in the gardens. As the tactical teams were dropped off at their individual landing zones, the growers scattered, fleeing for their freedom. It is believed that there were as many seven growers living at the site, maintaining the crops.
The teams gave chase, and apprehended two suspects, both illegal migrant workers from Mexico.
The three tactical teams uncovered one main camp site at the western side of the gardens, where five to seven toothbrushes were uncovered, giving the teams an idea of how many suspects could be in the area.
Two arrests were made at Shepherd Creek. Eloy Chavez, 66, of Mexico, and his nephew, Manuel Billa Chavez, 42, also of Mexico, were arraigned in Inyo County in July.
According to the Forest Service, Eloy and Manuel were employees of a drug trafficking organization. They have been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Fresno for felony marijuana cultivation charges and felony depredation of government property charges.
If found guilty, the two alleged growers could receive from 10 years to life in a federal prison.
As federal and state law enforcement officials are cracking down on marijuana growing operations throughout the state, growers are looking for more remote locations to produce the drug.
Like the sites raided earlier this year, many large-scale grow operations have guards and farmers that live with the plants. Hikers and recreators that may come in contact with any growing operation on public lands are advised to leave the area as quickly as possible, as grow sites have been known to be booby-trapped.
According to the U.S. Forest Service, most marijuana gardens on public lands are grown in very rermote locations, away from areas that are frequented by the public.
Nevertheless, “if a private citizen comes upon something suspicious, don’t enter the area; just leave and notify local law enforcement authorities immediately,” said Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Rich Watt.
The Inyo National Forest, with a vast two million acres and stretches of creeks and streams, is an ideal place for cultivators.
The plants are generally grown between May and November.
While visiting or recreating on the Inyo National Forest, the Forest Service recommends citizens should be cautious of isolated tents in the forest where no recreational activity is present, the utilization of trailers with no evidence of recreational activities, a pattern of vehicular traffic or a particular vehicle seen in the same isolated area on a regular basis, unusual structures located in remote forest areas with garden tools, signs of cultivation or soil disturbance in unlikely areas, and trash or piping, as they may be indicators of an illegal growing operation.
Large-scale marijuana cultivation projects, like the ones uncovered in the Inyo, have proven to be a hazard on public lands. Not only do they put recreators in danger, should they inadvertently find the fields, but the irrigation systems installed to water the gardens damage the land. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 January 2008 )
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