Pot grows found

A sheriff’s deputy surveys a makeshift tent in which marijuana buds have been hung for drying at an illegal grow where 488 plants were found a mile east of the Del Norte county line in the Bluff Creek drainage area. (Submitted)

More than 3,800 marijuana plants have been eradicated in recent raids at seven outdoor growing operations, according to the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office.

A total of 3,320 plants were pulled last week in six gardens. They were located by air support, but authorities had to hike into them.

The operations were part of the California Department of Justice’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) program.

One grow operation was located a half-mile from the Oregon border off of Wiemer Road on U.S. Highway 199, and three other grows were also near the Oregon border.

The fifth and sixth grows were located on the North Fork and South Fork drainages into the Smith River.

A seventh grow operation containing 488 plants was located Wednesday in the Bluff Creek drainage area a mile east of the county line in southeast Del Norte County.

The grows appeared to have been tended by Asian gang-related drug operations, the Sheriff’s Office said, but no arrests have been made.

Sheriff’s Office statistics show more than 17,000 plants have been pulled this year in outdoor grows.

According to Sgt. Steve Morris, that number does not include hundreds of plants that have been pulled from illegal indoor grows.

“Since 1990, this has been the most  outdoor grows ever in Del Norte County,” said Morris of the 18 grow operations destroyed this year.