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About 40,000 marijuana plants seized from a tree farm near Burbank is "by far the largest single growing operation" busted in Walla Walla County in more than three decades, said Walla Walla County Sheriff Mike Humphreys.
The plants, found by detectives with the South Eastern Washington Narcotics Team, ranged in height from 1 to 4 feet and were estimated to be worth more than $50 million on the street, authorities said.
"It's a very substantial marijuana growing operation," Humphreys said Thursday. "And it's probably well-funded by an organization" from out of the area.
Three suspects were arrested. Investigators are working to identify a fourth who avoided capture.
Last year, the South Eastern Washington Narcotics Team took down a grow with about 45,000 plants, but they were scattered in various locations. Humphreys said this is the most plants that he's seen grown in one area in his 33 years in the county.
Drug team detectives found the grow Tuesday at a farm about three miles east of Burbank. They were checking the area because grow operations had been discovered there in the past two years, Humphreys said.
The previous grows had been located after the plants were harvested, so this year detectives decided to set up surveillance in the area before the grow season started, he said. They had help from the owner of the 10,000-acre tree farm.
When they got a tip that people might be in the trees, the drug task force went in Tuesday to investigate, Humphreys said.
Detectives entered a tree plot and saw several marijuana plants and a person running from the area.
They backed out, surrounded the area and waited for Walla Walla police drug officers and two Pasco police officers, including one K-9 unit, to help with the search. The K-9 unit was able to track down three suspects.
Francisco Sosa Cervantes, 36, and Augustine Salas Serena, 32, both of Yakima, and Isidor Cortes Perez, 32, of Portland, were arrested on suspicion of manufacturing marijuana. The two Yakima suspects had identification from California and Utah.
"They're not even from here, but they're put in there to do their job," Humphreys said.
The men, who allegedly had set up camp and were living inside the grow, are now in the Walla Walla County jail on $100,000 bail.
On Wednesday, officers from sheriff's offices in Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Yakima counties, Walla Walla police, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the National Guard, the Law Enforcement Against Drugs Task Force in the Lower Valley and the state Department of Fish & Wildlife helped collect evidence and eradicate the plants.
Law enforcement officers use planes to help search rural areas for large marijuana grows, but the sheriff said an operation like the one they just dismantled wouldn't have been spotted from the air.
"Planting these growing operations in (tree) farms -- we can't see them from the air because the trees gives them a canopy," Humphreys said. "And it's perfect for growing operations because they're watered and they're fertilized."
The pot plants seized weren't mature yet because it's still early in the grow season, but "that's why we're doing some proactive things so we can catch these growers and it paid off," Humphreys said.
"It's important we kept these plants from being harvested and off the streets," he added.
