cannabisnews.com: Dump Yields Weed in Merced County 





Dump Yields Weed in Merced County 
Posted by FoM on March 24, 2000 at 20:20:37 PT
By Patty Guerra, Bee Staff Writer
Source: Modesto Bee
Someone in Merced County is no doubt frantically searching his or her house, desperately hoping it didn't happen. It couldn't have happened. The drug stash didn't somehow get tossed out with the trash.  It happened. 
A 1-pound package of marijuana was delivered with a load of garbage to the Highway 59 landfill north of town Wednesday afternoon.  "We have a spotter on site so whenever anything is unloaded, they can kind of see there's nothing getting dumped that shouldn't be," said Scott Johnston, deputy director of the county's solid-waste division, part of the Public Works Department.  The spotter's job is to locate anything that has been illegally dumped so it can be removed.  Generally, spotters come across tires, paint, insecticide or other household materials that require special treatment for disposal.  "A lot of what we're trying to do is divert as much material out of our landfill that we can to reuse it, recycle it or compost it," Johnston said. The package found Wednesday doesn't qualify for any of those.  Johnston doesn't remember another occasion when illegal drugs were discovered at a county landfill.  "(The spotter) noticed this and thought it was rather suspicious," Johnson said.  Sheriff's deputies called to the dump confirmed it was marijuana and took it as evidence.  The bag contained just over 1 pound of the substance, worth between $1,000 and $2,000, sheriff's Sgt. Tom Cavallero said.  But unless its owner comes forward to claim it, finding out who it belongs to isn't going to be easy.  Workers didn't see the package being unloaded, Johnston said. "They saw it while it was on the ground and we don't know who brought it in."  Bags of clippings don't usually generate any suspicion, and it took a second look to see what the bag contained.  "It could have been yard trimmings or something like that," Johnston said. "They did a real good job out there."  Staff writer Patty Guerra can be reached at 381-0208 or pguerra modbee.com Published: Friday, March 24, 2000Copyright © The Modesto Bee.  
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