Lake County deputies destroy 13,000 marijuana plants near Lakeport

Lake County sheriff’s detectives apprehended a 46-year-old Brentwood man during the raid of a clandestine 13,060-plant marijuana garden nestled in a remote drainage west of Lakeport, authorities said Thursday.

Juan Armando Gutierrez was booked into Lake County Jail on suspicion of marijuana cultivation, possession for sale and resisting arrest, Lt. Steve Brooks said.

The narcotics team initially spotted the site April 4 during a routine flight over Lake County to look for illicit pot gardens.

A team of sheriff’s detectives and federal Bureau of Land Management rangers on Monday hiked an area at the bottom of a drainage of the south fork of Scotts Creek.

They reached the garden, on private property, about 7:15 a.m. A man in camouflage, later identified as Gutierrez, initially was unaware of the deputies and walked from a creek bed uphill toward them, Brooks said. Once confronted, he tried to escape but was apprehended by a sheriff’s dog, officials said.

The team chopped down the plants, which were mature and in the late flowering stage, and flew them out of the site using a helicopter, sheriff’s officials said.

The camp had two tents and substantial food supplies. The marijuana was irrigated “using a complex gravity-fed drip irrigation system, which was diverting water from a spring,” according to a news statement.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.