Outdoor pot grow season ends in Santa Cruz County; 33 pounds of marijuana seized

Jennifer Squires - Sentinel Staff Writer



Thursday's rain signaled the end of Santa Cruz's Indian summer, and also meant the outdoor marijuana growing season was over.

Sheriff's narcotics detectives, who are charged with investigating pot gardens during the summer months, reported they saw an upsurge in outdoor marijuana plantations this year, although they received fewer tips about the location of clandestine pot grows.

From April to the end of October, deputies raided 28 outdoor cultivation sites containing 29,160 pot plants, according to Sgt. Steve Carney. Of those grows, 10 were on public lands, including Castle Rock and Big Basin state parks.

The season totals were among the highest in Sheriff's Office history. Two years ago, deputies pulled up about 40,000 pot plants from outdoor gardens. The numbers were down in 2007, Carney said.

"It's weird how it fluctuates but there could be a variety of reasons," he said, citing tips, deputies' workload and even weather conditions as factors in how many marijuana plants are discovered by authorities, or even planted by growers.

From January to November, deputies have also seized 5,727 plants from 27 indoor grows.

This year, the majority of the outdoor gardens found and eradicated were discovered by flying over the Santa Cruz Mountains in a helicopter or during the county's three large wildfires in May and June, Carney said.

Deputies actually had tips about at least one pot growin a ravine near the Summit prior to the fire, but didn't investigate it. Carney speculated the marijuana was destroyed.




"We don't know what burned up in the fire," he said, speaking of the Summit Fire above Corralitos. "That area is a target rich environment for these guys."

Some of the gardens were discovered by fire crews. Following up on that information, deputies and agents from the state Campaign Against marijuana Planting removed about 19,000 plants -- most from public lands -- during one week in July.

"A lot of them were replants," Carney said, explaining several of the sites were abandoned gardens that had been raided by the Sheriff's Office two or three yeas earlier. "I've been told that occurs although this is the first time I've seen it."

Now that the marijuana grows have been uprooted, the Fresno-based High Sierra Trail Crew and local volunteers plan to hike into some of the abandoned gardens next month to clean up trash left behind by the farmers and undo some of the environmental harm, such as terracing.

Shane Krogen, High Sierra Trail Crew coordinator, said last week 23 residents from Santa Cruz County and the Silicon Valley had volunteered to help out with the restoration effort. He hopes that the cleanup crew will be about 50 strong by the time they hike into nine sites in Big Basin and Castle Rock state parks.

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