The Oregonian clipping: 'Marijuana gardens raided' on Government Island
Document date 16 September 1994
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Id: Cooper-Part-51:038-039
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-51:038-039 Document: The Oregonian clipping: 'Marijuana gardens raided' on Government Island Id: Cooper-Part-51:038-039 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-51%3A038-039 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
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FBI 164-81, Vault Part 51 pp. 38–39 (DB Cooper-2113, DB Cooper-21142), News clipping, dated 16 Sep 1994 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-51%3A038-039
Marijuana 'gardens' raided
■ Narcotics experts hack through blackberry bushes on the Columbia River's Government Island to find and uproot 80 plants
By NANCY McCARTHY of The Oregonian staff
By air and by sea they approached Government Island on Monday, men in green sheriff's un- iforms, men in camouflage, men in the dark blue jump suits of the bomb squad.
As the National Guard helicopter hovered over the island in the Columbia River, narcotics and bomb experts approached in two boats.
In fields where cattle once grazed, authorities seized 80 marijuana plants, some chicken wire and a package of fertilizer.
National Guardsmen spotted three marijuana "gardens" as they flew over the 6-mile-long island near the Glenn Jackson Bridge and directed those who arrived by boat to the growing areas. Men armed with machetes climbed up steep, rocky hillsides and hacked their way through 12- foot-high walls of blackberry bushes surrounding the plants.
"Once we get under those trees, we don't know what we'll find," said Sgt. Brian Martinek, a member of the Multnomah County sheriff's spe- cial investigations unit.
Three weeks ago, a caretaker alerted them to the plants. The caretaker's tractor had hit an ex- plosive and flown into the air, and sheriff's dep- uties feared the marijuana patches were booby- trapped. But they found no explosives Monday.
Usually Martinek and his team of sheriff's dep- uties work indoors, ferreting out grow operations in basements, closets and barns. But at least once a year, they jump in the sheriff's River Patrol
Please turn to RAID, Page B6
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9/16-94
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A member of a raiding party uproots marijua- na plants grow- ing among the blackberry thick- ets on Govern- ment Island.
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DB Cooper-21142
B6 [redaction boxes] 4+ 6-16-94
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Raid: Operation called 'rip-and-run' by officers
Continued from Page B1 boat and head for Government Is- land to look for dope.
They're rarely disappointed.
Most of the island, except for the eastern tip, is owned by the Port of Portland. It is public land, but its lo- cation — accessible only by boat — is isolated from public view. That makes it ripe for growers looking for a good place to hide their poten- tially profitable produce.
"We call this a 'rip-and-run' opera- tion," Martinek explained as raiders uprooted plants. "If it's a significant grow, we would do a surveillance on the place."
An earlier cursory examination by helicopter showed that growers had tunneled through the blackber- ry bushes, cleared a few of them and planted marijuana in their place. This wasn't a rich marijuana field tended regularly.
The plants seized Monday by Mar- tinek's team and authorities from the Port of Portland, the city of Port- land and Oregon State Police — about 15 persons in all — were about six weeks from harvesting. None yet had the sticky buds — the flowers that generate the marijuana "high."
But the healthy, strong plants, which stood 3 feet to 16 feet high, were well on their way to maturity. Between 1 and 1.5 pounds of mari- juana for every 3 to 4 feet of plant eventually could have been pro- duced, Martinek estimated.
On the street, buds are selling for
"Those taller ones would have had a heck of a bud on them," Martinek said. "They were planted in growing cups, like they do in an indoor oper- ation, to give them a good start."
Chicken wire was wrapped around some of the plants. Dis- carded nearby were 12 plastic con- tainers, probably used for watering, and a small bag of fertilizer.
No one knew who cultivated the crops, but they figured the garden- ers, who watered the plants by hand and fertilized via plastic bags, were unsophisticated.
"The pros set up a watering pool and a drip system that waters the plants automatically. Then they get the heck out of there and don't come back very often," said Sgt. Timothy McLain of the Oregon State Police. McClain is a member of the Port- land Airport Interagency Narcotics Team.
After four hours of hiking the beaches, climbing the rocks and hacking blackberry bushes, the au- thorities jumped back in their boats and headed for still another grow operation. In a field of blackberry bushes near Northeast 102nd Ave- nue and Sandy Boulevard, they found 80 more plants.
They counted the day a success.
"If we got only three plants, it would be worthwhile," said George R. Schneider, a River Patrol officer for the sheriff's office. "If we didn't do this, we would have plants all over, and I would prefer not to see
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DB Cooper-2113