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Massive Marijuana Field Destroyed By City

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A top Chicago police official says there won't be any more marijuana growing in a large secluded prairie on the Southeast Side.

The pot farm around 107th and Stony Island on the Southeast Side could only have been noticed from the air because it was surrounded by tall grasses and weeds.

In fact, it was two police helicopter pilots who spotted the marijuana growing in an area described as the size of two football fields.

Police Organized Crime Bureau Chief Nick Roti says the city will make sure no one can ever grow pot there again.

He says the city's Departments of Forestry and Streets and Sanitation have put down, where 1,500 marijuana plants once grew, a formula and woodchips that would inhibit the growth of vegetation.

The combination of that and the continued vigilance of police helicopter pilots, he says, should ensure no one is able to grow pot there again.

Chief Roti says the 1,500 marijuana plants dug up this week would have been worth $7 million on the street and have been destroyed.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's Bernie Tafoya Reports

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