Another vineyard, another pot bust

Drugs agents seized 4,409 marijuana plants from a vineyard near Sunnyside on Saturday morning, bringing the season total for Yakima County to slightly more than 77,000 plants.

Meanwhile, a traffic stop by Grandview police Friday night netted the arrest of four men suspected of growing marijuana, authorities said.

The men still had fresh marijuana stuck to their clothes when the car was pulled over, said Sgt. Rick Beghtol, supervisor of Law Enforcement Against Drugs, the Lower Valley task force.

Investigators will try to track down the men's growing operation.

The driver listed a Nevada address on his driver's license, which supports the idea that the thousands of marijuana plants seized this year are generally not destined for buyers in the Yakima Valley, Beghtol said.

Saturday's seizure took place on a 27-acre vineyard in the 100 block of Snipes Pump Road. As in several recent cases, marijuana had been concealed around the grape plants. Beghtol said the drug task force will pursue forfeiture of the property because the suspected grower had purchased the land. He was still being sought on Saturday.

On Friday, agents counted 19,109 marijuana plants that they pulled from a vineyard outside of Mabton. Three men were arrested when the Sunnyside SWAT team raided a house on that property.

The growing operations taken down in the last couple of months have all been generated through tips or other drug investigations, Beghtol said.

The annual marijuana eradication effort, during which drug investigators bring in officers from across the state to fly over Yakima and Klickitat counties to look for plants, won't take place until later this summer, Beghtol said.