Electric Bills Lead Deputies to Marijuana : Drugs: Authorities arrest two after 300 plants are found growing under high-powered lights in a two-car garage in Ventura.

County sheriff’s deputies got a tip that something was awry at a little house on Poli Street. But they were skeptical until they looked through old electric bills.

For a year, Southern California Edison bills for the Ventura house were found to have ranged from $200 to $400 a month, many times that of an average county household. On Tuesday, deputies with warrants searched the residence and found 300 marijuana plants growing under high-powered lights in a two-car garage.

Ina Moss, 40, and James Brown, 25, occupants of the house in the 1600 block of Poli Street, were arrested and charged with one count each of cultivation of marijuana and possession of marijuana for sale. They were released on their own recognizance and are scheduled to be arraigned next Tuesday.

The marijuana plants, which authorities estimate are worth about $600,000, several giant light bulbs and other equipment were seized as evidence.

“We received information from a source that the marijuana was being grown there,” Sgt. Arnie Aviles said. “But the electric use was the big tip-off. It was so out-of-sight for so long, we knew there was obviously something wrong there.”

Tuesday’s raid brings the number of marijuana plants seized by sheriff’s deputies to 1,532 this year, Aviles said.

The last large raid occurred in September, when authorities confiscated about 400 marijuana plants from a Thousand Oaks family suspected of growing them in a bedroom and a back yard.

In August and July, about 600 plants were seized in raids at various locations in the county, as deputies stepped up air searches over the mountains and hills--popular spots for growing marijuana.

Aviles said the plants confiscated in Tuesday’s raid were growing in volcanic rock. An irrigation system was being employed that included timers and thermostats to regulate humidity and temperature, he said.

The excess water was collected in large containers and recycled, apparently to avoid detection by the city of Ventura, which is carefully monitoring water use because of the drought, Sgt. Gary Pentis said.

The plants--from six inches to three feet tall--were labeled, numbered and arranged according to size, he said. Pentis said the lights automatically rotated on the ceiling in the same pattern as the sun.

“It was a sophisticated system,” Pentis said.

According to Pentis, each plant at maturity would have yielded a pound of marijuana.

“They were growing it right,” he said.

Aviles said he was surprised at the size of the light bulbs, which cost about $100 each.

“They’re the size of turkeys, they’re so big,” he said. “And the reflectors that went around them were huge.”