Investigators dig deep to find who destroyed meadow

Wenatchee World article about the destruction of a Wenatchee meadow by four-wheel-drive trucks.

Six drivers in four-wheel-drive vehicles are accused of tearing up Orr Creek Meadow last fall during a late-night drinking party. (photo provided by Fish and Wildlife)

WENATCHEE — One night of destructive fun has altered the course of nature in a peaceful meadow south of Wenatchee and left six off-road truck drivers mired in legal trouble.

Five men and one juvenile accused of destroying the meadow with their four-wheel-drive trucks last fall called it the "mudhole" in statements to police and referred to their night of tearing it up as "play."

Wildlife officers called it the most egregious act of nature destruction they've ever seen by off-road vehicles.

"To take that area and turn it in one night from a meadow to a mudhole, it's the worst damage I've ever seen done in such a short period of time," said Doug Ward, who has been an enforcement officer for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife for 29 years.

The vehicles opened up underground springs that feed Orr Creek in the Stemilt Basin, rerouted the creek, crushed an irrigation culvert and damaged division intakes used by the Wenatchee Heights Reclamation District.

The creek drainage is the primary source of water for the irrigation district and its 300-acre-foot Black Lake reservoir, which supplies water to orchards south of Wenatchee.

Ward and fellow officer Graham Grant were called to the Orr Creek meadow last September after a state fire crew reported heavy damage by four-wheelers. The meadow lies along a green-dot road system, which means vehicles can only drive on dirt roads identified on signs with a green dot and cannot go off-road.

When the officers arrived at the scene, they found the once dry, grassy 2.5-acre meadow transformed into a muddy track, with deep ruts dug by oversized tires and water seeping out of the ground.

"It looked like the Army used it for tank training," Ward said.

Grant, an investigator for the agency, went to work trying to find those responsible for the destruction.

The only evidence found in the muddy meadow was a license plate, presumably dropped from one of the vehicles. In the camp area across the road, they found a small pickup hidden in the brush and stuck on a berm.

After interviewing other people camping in the area of the meadow, Grant learned that there had been a large party near the meadow two nights earlier with more than 100 young people. Large trucks were heard tearing around the meadow in the early-morning hours. While Grant was talking to other campers, three people returned to the area in a muddy four-wheel-drive truck to retrieve the pickup in the bushes.

Grant said he talked to the three people and learned some first names of people involved in the meadow damage.

Armed with some partial names and a license plate, Grant spent the next six weeks searching vehicle registration records, staking out homes and searching the Wenatchee area for muddy four-wheel-drive vehicles.

"I visited several residences — in the morning, at night and during the daytime — to try and find the vehicles," he said, adding that many of the suspects knew he was looking for them because they'd heard it from people he had already interviewed. "Some had been hidden in barns or orchards to avoid detection."

He added, "It took a lot of persistence to keep looking, to keep talking to people."

In the course of dozens of interviews and home stakeouts, Grant said he identified six possible suspects.