Chelan County Sheriff (CCSD) - Chelan County Sheriff Mike Harum reports Agents from the Columbia River Drug Task Force, the Washington State Patrol, the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency and Chelan County deputies conducted flight operations with 3 helicopters for the past several weeks in efforts to locate Marijuana grow operations in Chelan County.  Over 12,000 Marijuana plants have been located in various areas of the county.  These Marijuana operations are similar to operations found in North Central Washington in past years.

Two arrests have been made at this point, evidence has been collected from the sites and investigators will be working aggressively toward additional arrest.  The estimated street value of these plants is at $1,500 to $4,500 per plant.   Investigators also located old operations where growers were undetected in the past leaving extensive damage to public lands.

A Grow in North County

The Sheriff’s office will continue to work aggressively to eradicate drugs in North Central Washington with the assistance of the Chelan County Regional SWAT team, Columbia River Drug Task Force, United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Washington State Patrol, United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), United States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), United States Forest Service (USFS), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Wenatchee Police Department, and Chelan County Sheriff’s personnel.