[Sativa]

About 14,800 marijuana plants with an estimated value of up to $29 million have been seized in a remote area northeast of the state capital, Boise County Sheriff Drew Bodie said.

The plants found Wednesday on national forest land about 20 miles north of Arrowrock Dam were in the early stages of growth, but the elaborate operation was designed to supply plants for four to six major pot production sites, Bodie told the Idaho Press-Tribune of Nampa.

When mature, each plant could produce about two pounds of marijuana worth around $4,000, and with normal mortality the crop would have been worth $14.5 million to around $29 million, authorities said.

No arrests were reported.

Following a tip on April 29 from a bear hunter who said he and his dogs stumbled onto the operation, sheriff's deputies were joined by agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Forest Service, Idaho Fish and Game Department and State Police in the raid, officials said.

Officials said a DEA helicopter was used to take 12 officers to the mountainous site, where they destroyed an elaborate drip irrigation system and other equipment, seized camping gear and other potential evidence and hiked out with the pot plants.

The growers apparently abandoned the site, leaving behind a food stockpile, after it was discovered by the bear hunter, Bodie said. He estimated the site had been occupied for at least a month.

"There's no doubt in my mind they knew what they were doing," sheriff's Lt. Dale Rogers told KTVB Television of Boise. "They had a lot of equipment in there. This was a huge, huge nursery."

Similar but usually smaller marijuana growing operations, commonly involving several hundred to a few thousand plants, are not uncommon in the area and or other national forests across the western U.S.

"We believe that this goes on in our county a lot. The problem is finding" the operations, Bodie said. "This is pretty rough territory out here. It's very hard, but we do get tips now and then, and we aggressively follow up on all of them."


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Source: The Olympian
Contact: The Olympian - Olympia, Washington
Copyright: 2007 The Olympian
Website: 14,800 marijuana plants found growing in Idaho forest