Big pot bust in Wenatchee

Wenatchee Authorities seized another 1,760 marijuana plants in Chelan County, adding to what has already become a record year for pot busts here.

Drug enforcement officials have seized more than 37,000 marijuana plants in the north-central Washington county so far this year, up from the 16,906 plants that were confiscated in the county last year.

The latest find was reported to investigators Friday by a hunter who stumbled across it in a very remove area about three miles west of Wenatchee. Deputies pulled the plants Saturday, and they were loaded onto a helicopter Sunday to be destroyed, Chelan County Sheriff Mike Harum said.

The plants were watered with a drip system that was fed from a spring and a hand-dug reservoir. A camp was found nearby where caretakers stayed during the growing season. No arrests have been made, Harum said.

Statewide, law enforcement officials confiscated a record 133,936 marijuana plants in 2004, pushing the state to No. 5 nationally in the number of domestic plants seized. So far this year, police have confiscated more than 82,000 plants.

Authorities have attributed the increase in the number of growing operations in central Washington to the post-9/11 border crackdown and increasing enforcement in Oregon and California.

Agency to acquire tunnel’s midsection

Stevens Pass, Wash. The U.S. Forest Service owns both ends of a 3-mile-long abandoned railroad tunnel north of Stevens Pass, but in a quirky twist of land deals over the years, the agency doesn’t own the middle section.

That could soon change. The federal government is expected to complete an agreement this fall to acquire the rest of the old Cascade tunnel from a private owner.

The tunnel crosses the Chelan-King county line just north of the Stevens Pass Ski area.

The middle section and some surrounding land are owned by a family corporation, the Tye Valley Tunnel Co. According to a recent newsletter by the Alpine Lakes Protection Society, owner Ella Riach promised to donate the land and tunnel as long as it is called the Riach Memorial Tunnel.