McDONOUGH – The Chenango County Sheriff’s Office swept through a marijuana growing operation Tuesday that was uncovered by detectives in a remote swamp in the Town of McDonough, seizing irrigation equipment and hundreds of plants.

Sheriff’s investigators spent about five hours hauling more than 400 plants from the location yesterday afternoon, worth an estimated $300.000.

Police raided a large parcel of land measuring nearly half a mile wide, according to property records kept by the Chenango County Office of Real Property and Tax Services, which is owned by an out of state individual living in the New Jersey area.

The property had no direct access from the road, but the site of the operation was located several hundred yards into a wetland area along county Route 7.

Detective Sgt. Richard M. Cobb said they’d been tipped off to the operation after a pilot, who had prior law enforcement experience and training in spotting illegal plants from the air, saw the growth during a training flight and called it in.