**Video clip can be found at the link below**

http://www.nbc11.com/news/17100461/detail.html?rss=bay&psp=news

Special Report: Pot Farmers Ravage Bay Area Parks

Many Pot Farms Located On Public Land


NAPA, Calif. -- It used to be that marijuana came to the Bay Area from the legendary back country of Humboldt County or the desert fields beyond Tijuana.


Now the fields are in the Bay Area, and everywhere else in the state. marijuana is one of the top cash crops in California, NBC Bay Area's Mike Luery reported.

Many of the fields are located next to popular trails and in the middle of state parks.


A fierce battle is being waged in our own back yard to remove the pot groves. They are hidden in brush so thick that specially trained officers must dangle dangerously from ropes tied to helicopters or hike miles just to get in.


"If you grow it, we will come," said one agent.


"We've recovered assault weapons, rifles and hand guns from those that we've arrested," said another agent.

Last year, the state's Campaign Against marijuana Planting eradicated nearly 3 million pot plants. Most of them, about 75 percent, were found on public land.


"They're basically stealing the land from what it was intended for, which is recreation and hiking and hunting," said Ryan Pontecorvo, Eradication Team Commander.


One pot grove that Luery visited in the Napa Valley is located on federal land owned by the Bureau of Land Management. However, Luery said, typically agents find farms in state and national parks.


Wherever people go, drug traffickers have chopped down trees and hijacked the water supply.


They lay hundreds of yards of plastic tubing to irrigate their plants with stolen water, while leaving behind mounds of fertilizer and trash that brings chemical pollution.


"The folks who are growing the marijuana are not your peace hippies from the 60s," said Gary Pitkin of the Special Agent Eradication Team. "These are armed members of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations, who utilize assault style weapons, assault rifles to protect their cash crops."


Confrontations have been fatal, as in the recent Santa Clara County case where agents killed an armed trafficker.


marijuana farming is big business in California. In one day, teams eradicated 9,000 plants with a street value of $27 million.

__________________
*For Entertainment Purposes Only.* Remember, spread the love and hit the +rep button. And, check out www.kiva.org