High Utility Bills May Lead Police To Your Door

Source: KXAN TV (Austin,Texas)

High Utility Bills May Lead Police To Your Door

Posted:

The special lights and watering systems used to grow marijuana indoors can spike a utility bill, easily doubling it.

The American Civil Liberties Union said most police departments would have to work for the information it believes may unfairly profile people.

"In most cases, though, it's a private company, and the police department would have to get a subpoena to go after anybody they suspected," said Debbie Russell of the Central Texas ACLU.

A utility database confidentiality agreement allows the Austin Police Department to access Austin Energy usage numbers.

"State law allows us to share information with other governmental entities, and APD is, of course, a city department," said Ed Clark of Austin Energy. " And so, really and truly, we wouldn't have a basis on which to deny information to them, and on the other hand, we are interested in assisting them."

An APD representative agreed to talk to KXAN Austin News about using energy usage information, but just before the interview, the agency got a call from its attorneys, advising to refrain from commenting on the issue.

APD issued a statement that said every case must go through the legal process, where all tactics are reviewed. It also said APD is confident that the measures it utilizes follow the law.

The ACLU is trying to find out whether APD is searching energy use to find possible pot growers, without just cause.

"Are they profiling? Are they saying that anybody who uses this amount of energy must be a pot grower?" said Russell. "And kicking people's doors in late at night, when it might be an 85-year-old lady growing African violets?"

The Texas Attorney General's office is getting involved, and the ACLU said this could be the beginning of a lengthy fight.

"This, I think, is opening up a whole interesting can of worms," said Russell.

Read more: http://www.kxan.com/global/story.asp?s=7322955&ClientType=Printable

I thought everyone knew this?

They have special equipment where they can fly over an area and see if there's a lot of extra energy coming from any one house.

Know that heat emissions can be detected externally(FLIR), but energry usage detected externally is new to me....can you elaborate? Sure that would be a new toy that police departments would love to have. It would be nice to know.......for educational purposes only of course........

It might be the heat they're picking up. I'll do a search and let ya know.

Yep heat

There's also an imaging technology called Forward-Looking InfraRed (FLIR) that is often deployed in helicopters. This can be used to produce a heat map of a structure, which may suggest (but not positively identify) an indoor marijuana grow. In some legal jurisdictions (British Columbia, for example) FLIR imaging can be performed without a search warrant and can be used to secure a search warrant for premises having a suspicious heat signature. In the Unitied States, FLIR imaging evidence cannot be presented in court unless it has been obtained under the provisions of a search warrant, and FLIR imaging that was obtained without a search warrant cannot be used to procure a search warrant.

But please note that the power transformer just down the
street or maybe on yours or your neighbor's lawn is the
property of the Power Company and may be searched with
*THEIR* permission, not yours.

So if your grow operation is keeping the transformer
nice and toasty in the middle of the night, law
enforcement authorities can discover that and use
it as evidence without any need for a warrant against
you.

Tesha

opposite of infra RED (heat) ultra violet sees the UV waves emanating from the grow lights. nothing will keep them hidden.

on a lighter note. voting on Denvers 100
Initiated Question 100
Shall the voters of the City and County of Denver adopt an ordinance to the Denver Revised Municipal Code that would make the private use and possession of marijuana by persons 21 years of age and older the City's lowest law-enforcement priority?
Yes: 42,604 (56.27 percent)
No: 33,107 (43.73 percent)
Total: 75,711(Editor's note: Updated Wednesday at 9:28 a.m.) thats mountain time. all mail in ballot.

> Actually it is ultra violet opposite of infra RED (heat)
> ultra violet sees the UV waves emanating from the grow
> lights. nothing will keep them hidden.

Excuse me, but that's not correct. It's infrared.

Tesha

This old lady is trying to grow tomatos through the winter! I'm not in much danger tho.....on my SS income I can't afford the energy for grow lights!
Not only are tomatoes perennials, they are elegantly decorative!

Welcom to DU!

:hi:

I know a lot of people here in Michigan who start their tomatoes indoors in the winter to get a jump on things for their summer gardens.

So, instead of assuming guilt, why not just, I don't know, ask people in the neighborhood and see if the person has a nice garden?

but it depends on what your bill was before.
If you have a 50.00 bill that doubles it may attract attention.
If it's 200.00 and rises 20 or 40, that's not so obvious.
This could be partially offset through the use of a solar panel or a "sunflower".
(sunflower = solar concentrator + fiber optic)
As far as the heat detectors are concerned, there is certainly a risk of overflight.
Insulation of sufficient thickness and a basement location can deal with that threat.
Or so I've heard!

Ultimately, you *MUST* vent the heat somewhere.

Tesha

Waste heat you could vent ,say, out of the chimney, or through a distribution system that smeared out the hot spot.

to vent out the chimney, where you would expect heat to be coming from.

is that commercial growers are moving into McMansions to grow. they used to be able to run a very imressive grow in even the tiniest of houses, a couple of bedrooms can support quite a yield, but the power consumption of people in small houses is generally small, raising the red flag. so they move to the neighborhoods with McMansions where power consumption is quite high where they draw less attention.

The theory being...If you're using a lot of power you must be housing Islamo-fascist Terrorists.

All in a niiice moist basement location.

Come and git me f-kers!

I think this has turned into a "how to grow your pot and not get caught" thread:smoke:

Ain't a new concept. :shrug:

It's not new. If anything, it has declined.

set off any alarm bells.

One of the biggest factors causing one to get caught is that people just can't 'keep their mouths shut' and just have to 'show-off' their grow-room.

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants monitor my lazy underwatering of wilting house plants? Maybe I should let the faucet run a while once a week?

Since high usage users will be either the wasteful rich or the poor, the fruitfulness of such searches will plummet to nothing.

LEDs can be tuned to very specific light spectra and put out most of their energy in the form of light rather than heat.

KENS 5 Eyewitness News


Police have arrested one person after power surges at a North Central San Antonio apartment complex sparked suspicion. Officers say the person was using all the electricity, possibly to grow marijuana.

Investigators said maintenance workers at the Ashley Oaks Apartments, in the 16400 block of Henderson Pass, called police after residents had been complaining of power problems.

On Wednesday, undercover narcotics officers pulled the plug on the operation.

"They used electrical cords to rig up, and possibly to grow, where they're growing marijuana plants. Unfortunately, this guy's not an electrician," said an undercover officer, whose identity KENS 5 is protecting.

......................................................

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA110607.potpower.KENS.1e6998e98.html

Doing a commercial grow. A single 1000w light, waterfarm recirculating system, and air circulation add around $45 a month to your bill.

Now i did have a buddy get busted because they put monitors on the meter box It told of his power usage, and the 12hr spikes caused by his light. This was in Canada however.

even if pot was a problem.