Franklin County deputies take to skies to spot marijuana grows

Searching for illegal marijuana grows in rural Franklin County corn fields is nearly impossible from the ground.

But from the sky, Undersheriff Kevin Carle can spot a single marijuana plant in a sea of corn stalks.

That's not an exaggeration.

"I started laughing when I saw it," Carle said after spotting one plant while checking corn fields recently near Eltopia. "It wasn't very far out there. It was closer to the road."

Deputies went to the field the next day to pull the plant and discovered it was actually three plants growing in the one spot, but it was still a find.

"That's a good eye," said sheriff's Sgt. Jim Dickenson.

Carle has honed his skills after decades of patrolling the county from the sky during the marijuana harvest season, which runs through October.

Numerous illegal grows have be found in corn fields this year, with 8,848 pot plants harvested by the sheriff's office, he said.

"It's down as opposed to last year. The growing season's been a little different this year," Carle said. "It's been a little slow. And we've come across some grows where they had already started on some of the harvest."

Benton County sheriff's deputies also do aerial patrols to find marijuana grows in the outskirts of the large county.

So far this year, they've harvested 12,452 plants, with nearly half coming from an outdoor operation found in a dense brushy area on vacant property north of Prosser in August.

Sheriff's officials at the time said it appeared three people were living in the sophisticated grow and tending the plants. Firearms were found in the grow, which had an intricate trail system that detectives had to crawl through to get to seven separate areas where the plants were growing.

In Franklin County, corn fields appeared to be popular with pot farmers this year, likely because of the good soil, built-in irrigation system and dense cover.

"Field corn doesn't normally get harvested until October," Carle said.

Grows also have been found in asparagus fields and Russian olive trees.

"What we look for is holes or anything unusual in the (crop) pattern," said pilot Bruce Einspahr, who has been flying Carle since 1983.

As Einspahr circled the Cessna C-182 over a corn field just north of Pasco, he pointed out an area where about 400 marijuana plants had been found and harvested a week earlier. The plants were gone, but several holes in a straight row across the circle formation showed where the growers had pulled out the corn stalks to plant their pot.

Carle and Einspahr can end up in the plane several times a week during the growing season. They also fly overhead to help direct deputies on the ground to the plants and keep a watch out as deputies make their way through the maze of corn stalks.

The small plane buzzed just a few hundred feet over a cornfield off Eltopia West as sheriff's Detective Jason Nunez and deputies Marcus Conner, Jeff Miller and Rueban Vayona prepared to walk deep into the half-circle corn field to seize plants Carle spotted a day earlier.

Vayona quickly started swinging a machete to knock down corn stalks and create a path to the middle of the field where the pot had been planted.

When they reached the first wheel track in the crop circle, they radioed to Carle to find out which way to go next. Vayona continued cutting down stalk after stalk and after the second wheel track, footprints in the mud signaled they had found the growers' trail to the plants.

Conner said when he first started going out to seize the plants found in illegal grows he worried about the damage they caused to the farmers' crops. But, he said, that pales in comparison to the damage caused by the growers.

Not only do growers pull out or cut down stalks, the marijuana plants suck the nutrients and water away from the corn that is still in place, Conner said.

After a short time, the deputies got to a small clearing and found the 6-foot to 7-foot marijuana plants growing in a row for about 150 feet.

"I would say this was more of an amateur job than anything else because of the lack of cover," Conner said.

More sophisticated growers try to plant the marijuana next to the corn stalk so it grows together and the stalks provide cover. In this case, the growers put their plants in a small cleared out area.

"It's harvest time," Voyona said as they started pulling up the plants.

The deputies saw the plants had root balls, which indicate they had been started somewhere else before being transplanted in the corn field, Conner said.

The growers likely got a late start because of the cool spring and didn't plant the marijuana until July, they guessed.

"They're close to being ready to harvest," Conner said.

Marijuana plants have a street value of $2,000 to $3,000 a plant, officials said. Deputies speculated the growers were probably about two weeks away from harvesting the 80 plants and likely would have gotten full value for them.

But, the sheriff's office got to them first.

After pulling and counting the marijuana plants, the deputies each threw a load of plants over their shoulders and hauled them out using the trail they trudged in on.

The deputies inspected the plants, took pictures for evidence and loaded the marijuana into the back of a pickup truck.

"It's new. They're experimenting, you can tell," Conner said. "Hopefully they won't be back next year."

If they are, the growers can bank on one thing -- Carle will be back in the sky too.

This story was originally published October 4, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Franklin County deputies take to skies to spot marijuana grows."