TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Marijuana went up in smoke for TECO customers

Tribune photo by CLIFF McBRIDE

Members of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department move boxes full of marijuana today.

ADVERTISEMENT

By HOWARD ALTMAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 19, 2009

Updated: 06/19/2009 05:57 pm

For a while this morning, TECO customers had a new fuel powering their lights.

Weed.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office deputies burned nearly a ton of the leafy substance at the county's waste-to-energy plant on Falkenburg Road at 11 a.m., according to HCSO spokesman J.D. Callaway. TECO buys electricity from the plant.

There's no need to worry about anyone getting high from the process,' said Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Maj. Albert Frost.

"It's destroyed very quickly," he said. "We cut off a certain area, where no one can go in except for law enforcement, very tightly, highly supervised. You're not going to drive by and get high on Falkenburg Road."

The marijuana was seized between February and July of last year during "Operation Indoor Outlaw," a major sweep of grow houses in Hillsborough and Manatee counties, Callaway said. Deputies say the marijuana, which is contained in 300 boxes, has a street value of $6 million.

Deputies dismantled about 65 marijuana grow houses during that operation, according to Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee.

About 50 locations were targeted. Investigators seized about 5,800 plants and about 3,200 pounds of marijuana from houses stretching from Tampa to Thonotosassa.

The amount of drugs at each location, like the houses, ranged from modest to expansive. A $345,000 house in Odessa owned by Patrick Early, 32, for instance, contained 72 pounds of marijuana, investigators said. A $140,000 Tampa house owned by Amaury Gonzalez, 45, contained 33 marijuana plants, detectives said. Both homeowners are charged with felony marijuana trafficking, among other charges.

About 70 people have been arrested since February, Gee said. Some are cooperating with law enforcement.

While against the law to grow pot, burning it provided a good deal of energy, according to John Wilson, vice president of business development for Recycled Energy Development, a Westmont, Ill.-based waste-to-energy company.

Burning a ton of pot, he said, would "light 40,000 100-watt light bulbs for an hour."

News Channel 8 reporter Katie Coronado contributed to this report. Editor Howard Altman can be reached at (813) 259-7629.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT