Both KRCR-TV and the Record-Searchlight have stories up today on a whole series of raids on extremely large-scale marijuana operations that have taken place in Siskiyou County over the last month — including a couple in the Somes Bar area, right on the border of northeastern Humboldt County. And while I’m generally cautious about attributing even big, remote grows to major-league drug cartels, the sheer scope of these things does give one pause.

The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office says that it seized and destroyed an estimated 100,000 mature plants during two big raids, including one last week in the Marble Mountains just off Salmon River Road. That one took in some 31,000 plants. On Aug. 31, a raid up near Happy Camp found about 71,000 plants in five sites. Siskiyou Sheriff Jon Lopey told the media today that investigators believe at least two of these sites to have been run by the same people.

Add those numbers to the half a million plants taken in Mendocino National over the summer, and it seems clear that we’re not talking about Mom and Pop anymore, or even their baggy-pantsed, amped-up offspring. And these were just the plantations that were busted. There is some serious criminal firepower in our hills, even if no one seems able to pin down exactly which criminals they are.