OXFORD – A couple who illegally left their trash at the gate of the town dump last week were charged with growing and dealing marijuana after police went to their home on Pine Point Road to talk with them.

Philip Thompson, 35, was arrested on a charge of felony cultivating and trafficking marijuana. Lauri Minta, 28, was summoned on the same charge. The couple live together at 131 Pine Point Road, which is on the west shore of Thompson Lake off Route 121, police said.

When the bagged trash was found outside the gate of the waste transfer station last Friday – the station is closed Thursdays – station workers called police. Officer Alan Coffin searched the contents and traced it to Thompson and Minta, police Chief Jon Tibbetts said. When Coffin arrived at the residence, the chief said, he smelled and saw evidence of marijuana and called for agents from the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.

A search warrant was obtained, and officers found marijuana plants growing under high intensity lights in two bedrooms of the ranch style home, according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.

Police said one room contained 55 marijuana plants with small buds on them and 189 cloned plants growing in 16-ounce plastic cups.

Six plants that had matured and been stripped of the useable marijuana were also found, along with approximately one pound or more of dried plant material, intended for distribution, McCausland said.

Dried marijuana buds were found stored in glass and ceramic canning jars.

Police said each of the 55 budding marijuana plants had approximately pound of useable marijuana buds on them. With the average price for domestic cannabis being approximately $2,000 per pound, the cache represented a potential street value of $27,500.

The 189 clones, not yet ready to bud, but with a potential pound per plant yield, based upon the mature plants seized, represented a potential street value of approximately $94,500.

The combined estimated potential street value of the operation was $122,000.

Thompson was arrested and booked at the Oxford County Jail on the drug charges. Minta, who had left the residence with her two children, ages 7 and 11, prior to execution of the search warrant, was issued criminal summonses by Oxford police for the same felony offenses. She was fingerprinted and released.