"Million dollar" pot operation busted

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - What police are calling a “million-dollar” marijuana growing operation was discovered due to a gas leak.

Springfield police Sgt. John Delaney told 22News that hundreds of marijuana plants were discovered inside 293 Longhill Street Thursday evening. The large, brick house is believed to have been the center of a large operation growing hundreds of pounds of “hydro weed.”

Around 4:00 P.M., police were called to Longhill Street to help Columbia Gas with a gas leak in the road. Gas was also leaking inside 293 Longhill, so gas company workers and firefighters tried to warn those inside of the danger. Delaney says a woman answered the door and refused to let the firefighters in. Before police could get there to help, the woman ran out of the house carrying a briefcase and drove away in a white cargo van.

A police officer forced the house’s door open so workers could stop the leak. In the house’s basement, the officer saw hundreds of marijuana plants. After obtaining a search warrant, Delaney says police found more plants on the third floor.

In all, 40 large pot plants, 38 medium-sized plants, and 104 smaller plants were taken from the home. Delaney says they also found “rows and rows” of dried marijuana leaves and plant fragments that were hanging up. The combined weight of the marijuana in the home was about 100 pounds.

Also found inside the house were 180 ballast boxes, 24 hydro light fixtures with reflective hoods, eight exhaust vent fans, four boxes of high-intensity light bulbs, heat sealing machines, reflective foil, exhaust tubes, fertilizer, and packaging materials.

Police have determined the identity of the woman who ran out of the house, and a warrant has been obtained for her arrest. Police have declined to release her name until after her arrest, however. More arrests are expected as the investigation continues.

Delaney says the Narcotics Division is looking to confiscate the entire house as a forfeiture from the marijuana grow.