Pot harvest off to a big start

YAKIMA, Wash. — Authorities say they’ve pulled up more than 80,000 marijuana plants in Yakima County and have made six arrests this week during an annual exercise to eradicate the illegal plant.

If the plants are valued at $1,000 each — a conservative figure cited by police — the seizures would be valued at about $85 million, said Washington State Patrol Sgt. Al Escalera.

“That does not include today’s efforts,” he said. “Our teams are just coming out of the hills.”

More than 25 marijuana crops have been identified by authorities so far, mostly in the southern part of the Yakama Indian Reservation off U.S. Highway 97, Escalera said.

Three suspects were arrested Wednesday night on Highway 97 north of Satus Pass near where investigators pulled 42,000 plants, according to a police report filed in Yakima County Superior Court.

Between 50 and 60 officers from the Law Enforcement Against Drugs task force, based in the Lower Valley, and other agencies planned to search all week, officials say.

“But the teams that assisted are going to have to come back,” Escalera said. “Yakima County generally has the abundance of the marijuana grows and we can’t get it all in a week. ... We’re all going to be working it again.”

Three more suspects were arrested earlier this week in connection with a raid near Glenwood and reservation land.

Last week, Kittitas County authorities reported finding 9,500 plants growing in the mountains of the Teanaway area, about 40 miles northwest of Ellensburg. It was the largest grow ever reported in the county, sheriff’s officials said.

As of last week, more than 150,000 plants had been seized outdoors in Washington state in 2009, according to a federal Drug Enforcement Agency estimate.

Last year, a total of 538,918 plants were seized in outdoor grows across the state, said Jodie Underwood, a DEA spokeswoman in Seattle. More than 90 percent of the plants were found in Eastern Washington, many of them hidden in vineyards.