POT FARMS `RAVAGING' FOREST, AUTHORITIES SAY.

Byline: Jaxon Van Derbeken Daily News Staff Writer

They dam streams, fell trees and fashion elaborate hide-outs obscured from aerial detection under a canopy of trees and deep in the backcountry.

They have developed an $82 million marijuana cultivation network deep in the national forest, said authorities who have confiscated and destroyed 20,600 marijuana plants growing in the rugged Ventura County hillsides in the past year.

``They are pretty much going in there and tearing apart the natural mountains,'' said Sgt. Arnie Aviles of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department's narcotics detail.

``These people are just coming into our county, ravaging our national forest and leaving - they are littering it with trash, with plastic, Styrofoam, glassware, tin cans, they are changing the flows (of) the natural streams, they are killing these animals out of season,'' he said.

Authorities say that they are amazed at the scope of the marijuana growing operations where the illicit farmers have poached game, hacked down protected vegetation and used chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

``They are in there for a while, they are not in there for two or three days, they are planning to stay there,'' he said. ``Just the ground preparation, it had to take them months. They chopped down several trees, dammed up several streams, they have built pools so they can draw water from them to water the plants.''

He said the cultivators dug holes in the dense brush and fashioned trails from one plant to the next.

Aviles said that one lead ties the organization to a Los Angeles County drug bust in which Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies seized 50 kilos of cocaine. A vehicle seen in that operation has been linked to the cultivation network.

The latest pot farm discovery occurred Friday when a pair of deer hunters, attempting to get a jump on Saturday's opening of the deer season, stumbled upon 5,500 marijuana plants growing in the brush in the forest north of Fillmore.

The men walked right into the grove and heard voices, Aviles said. They then hid out in brush, and made an emergency call on their cellular phone to alert authorities.

Fearful of the pot farmers, the hunters spent the night in the forest and were found when officers hiked into the forest the next day.

Narcotics investigators in helicopters spotted three suspects, who had donned orange hunters vests, who fled into the brush. The vests were discarded nearby. The men left behind two deer skins and even deer meat jerky.

The latest find - a total of 5,500 3- to 8-foot-tall marijuana plants north of Matilija Canyon Road - is one of the largest single components in the network, Aviles said.

The first plantation was discovered over Labor Day 1995 in Lake Casitas, consisting of two separate campsites. Authorities found 4,200 plants, then stumbled across another smaller grove in the Tar Creek outside Fillmore, finding another 1,100 plants.

On July 26, in the Derrydale Creek area, authorities found a 3,400 plant site in the lower area and 6,400 plants in an upper portion of the canyon two miles away, which was cut down Aug. 5.

``There's no doubt in my mind they are all related,'' Aviles said. ``These campsites are within the gardens themselves, usually under big trees so you can't see them from the air.''

The plants each had the potential for yielding about one pound of marijuana selling for about $4,000 a pound, said Capt. Craig Husband of the sheriff's narcotics squad.

``This is a disturbing trend,'' Husband said. ``This is a major organization for commercial purposes, and they're doing tremendous damage to the environment.''