Pot problem keeps growing

Yakima County drug agents topped their previous season total for this year on Tuesday when they ripped out nearly 30,000 marijuana from two nearby vineyards southeast of Wapato.

The raid bordered U.S. Highway 97 and included more than three dozen SWAT officers and a helicopter, authorities said.

Fears that the suspects were armed turned out to be well founded, said Sgt. Rick Beghtol, supervisor of Law Enforcement Against Drugs, the Lower Valley task force that led the operation.

Investigators recovered five rifles and shotguns, including two the suspects may have dropped as they fled from the second vineyard, Beghtol said.

Tuesday's seizure -- 22,660 at the first scene; 7,192 at the second -- was the third major growing operation uncovered in Yakima County this year. Officials put the value at $27 million, saying the quality was higher for most of the plants than other recent cases.

Even as his agents keep setting the state seizure record for 2008, Beghtol keeps saying he expects to find even more.

The peak of the marijuana season comes later in summer, when drug agencies typically team up to look for marijuana growing in the forest and other remote areas.

Although the three grows this year have been concealed on rural farmland, the suspects seem to be creeping closer to civilization. One of the vineyards in Tuesday's case sits right behind M & R Towing and Sales on Highway 97, Beghtol said.

Tuesday's early-morning raid started with a tip from a confidential source that the marijuana was being grown in the 400 block of South Oldenway Road.

SWAT team members from the Yakima Police Department and the Washington State Patrol hit the house on the property about 5:30 a.m. Two of the three suspects arrested at the scene had to be caught as they ran across the field, Beghtol said.

As agents were pulling the plants and using the helicopter to haul them away, farmers helpfully pointed out the suspicious activity that was taking place at a vineyard off McDonald Road, within a mile or so of the Oldenway address.

The farmers told drug agents that the men seen in the field sometimes appeared to be armed and were caring for an unmarketable type of grape, even though the vines weren't in production.

"But they were being very vigilant about being out there tending the plants," Beghtol said the farmers reported.

By the time drug agents had gathered enough information for a search warrant in the early afternoon, the McDonald Road suspects had harvested some of their crop.

They left behind bedsheets at the end of some rows -- apparently their method of loading up the plants. They also abandoned a shotgun, a rifle and a dog, Beghtol said.

The suspects -- perhaps three or so -- probably scooted out the other end of the vineyard as the agents were coming onto the property to serve the warrant, Beghtol said.

He said an innocent third party had leased the Oldenway property to somebody else. The connection between that person and the three suspects is still being investigated.

Beghtol said there probably is some sort of link between the Oldenway and McDonald grows, but that's under review, too. The ownership of the McDonald parcel was unclear Tuesday.

Farmers have played key roles in the other two grows discovered in Yakima County.

In late May, a farmer east of Zillah was preparing his cornfield when he happened across what turned out to be a 10,000-plant crop. Earlier this month, a farmer south of Sunnyside approached two men in a neighboring vineyard who were using his irrigation water. Agents counted more than 18,650 plants at that scene.

* Mark Morey can be reached at 577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.

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