Glenn County Sheriff Larry Jones said the Glenn County Sheriff's Office Marijuana Eradication Team (MET) removed 13,632 marijuana plants, in the nursery stage, from the Mendocino National Forest on Tuesday.
The plants were found in the Grindstone Canyon off of Forest Highway 7, west of Elk Creek, Jones said. The MET was assisted in the eradication by US Forest Service officials.
Jones said members of a drug trafficking organization had selected an extremely remote site, some 1,000 feet drop in elevation, below FH 7, near a good water source where they had started to clear cut areas, terrace the land and lay plastic irrigation pipe in preparation for planting.
One camp site was located, which appeared to have been hastily abandoned by at least two individuals, he said.
A large amount of trash and waste had all ready started to accumulate on the forest floor. Jones said that in an effort to conceal and camouflage the operations, all equipment in the camp and grow areas had been painted green. Three nursery grow areas also had been set up and camouflaged with green netting.
Jones said that it was be a large grow operation as seeds and growing materials were located indicating additional plants would be started.
If allowed to grow to maturity, the potential street value of the plants would have been in the millions of dollars, Jones said. However, since they don't know how many of these plants would be female, the estimated street value will be adjusted.
Due to the late rains, which will provide good watering sources on public lands, the illegal marijuana growing season potentially could be large, Jones suggested.
Anyone traveling in remote areas of our forests who views suspicious activity is asked to call their local law enforcement, he said.
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