Pubdate: Sun, 20 May 2001
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Author: Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

URBAN BIOHAZARDS INVADING FORESTS

Drugs: As Cities Shutter More Labs, Last Year Saw A Fourfold Jump In Meth
Operations And Dumps Found On Public Lands.

ASHFORD, Wash.--In the dark evergreen forests that shroud the flanks
of Mt. Rainier, there always has been a whiff of danger. The paw print
of a black bear in the mud. A cougar's gold glint through the brush.

These days, the biggest hazards are man-made.

The recent discovery of a makeshift shack, a camp stove and several
containers of chemicals--the makings of a major, backwoods
methamphetamine lab--has prompted the closure of the 26,000-acre
Tahoma State Forest in western Washington.

The action was taken to allow officers time to track down widely
scattered hazardous chemical dump sites. And it marks the first
shutdown of an entire forest because of what authorities say is an
alarming increase in meth labs moving out of the cities and into the
nation's most remote lands.

"The urban cops have done such a good job of detecting these meth
labs, it's pushed them out of the towns and neighborhoods and into the
woods," said Dennis Heryford, chief investigator for the state
Department of Natural Resources.

Last year saw a fourfold increase in the number of meth labs and
associated chemical dumps found on the nation's 191.7 million acres of
U.S. Forest Service land, with 488 discoveries in all--a big portion
of them in the remote reaches of the Mark Twain National Forest in
southern Missouri.

In Washington state, forest meth labs have doubled each year over the
last three years, with 20 active labs and 20 dump sites unearthed in
the woods outside the Seattle metropolitan area last year.

The Forest Service also is battling a substantial increase in
backwoods marijuana farms on federal lands, with 443,595 cannabis
plants seized last year--nearly five times the seizures in 1997. Eight
of the top 10 national forests for such seizures were in California,
where marijuana farms tilled into the trees have ranged to as large as
four square miles.

"One of the biggest reasons we're finding them in rural areas is that
there are fewer chances of being detected. There are fewer cops and
generally fewer people," said Kim Thorsen, the Forest Service's deputy
director for law enforcement. "If you're cooking meth in your
backyard, your neighbors are going to smell it, number one. Number two
is the asset forfeiture laws. If you're cooking in your house, we can
seize your house or your truck, whereas on public land, you're really
not in that kind of situation."

Drug enforcement officials consider methamphetamine the
fastest-growing illegal drug in the country--and its use has
skyrocketed in small towns of the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest,
where supply links to imported drugs are more tenuous. Methamphetamine
easily can be manufactured with cold medicine, fertilizer and other
readily available chemicals.

The highly toxic and volatile nature of those chemicals is a
particular problem in the forests, where chemical dumps foul streams,
poison wildlife and leave whole swaths of greenery brown from
pollution that could take years to recover.

In October, a 46-acre fire on the Shawnee National Forest in southern
Illinois was touched off by a clandestine methamphetamine lab,
authorities said.

Law enforcement officials also have found a variety of booby traps in
the forests associated with backwoods meth labs and marijuana
farms--including shotgun shell booby traps, fishhooks hung at eye
level along trails and pits of sharpened stakes designed to impale
anyone who falls in them.

"I think we found 18 booby traps last year. Of course, in my opinion,
one is too many," Thorsen said.

And, most meth lab operators are armed. In April, local sheriff's
deputies and a U.S. Forest Service agent were shot at by a meth lab
operator while making an arrest in Phelps County, Mo., although no one
was injured. Three suspects were arrested.

On Forest Service land along the U.S.-Mexican border, drug smugglers
have threatened hikers and campers, Thorsen said. "We've overheard
them saying things like, 'Oh, we'll take out those bird watchers.'
Patrol officers have had their vehicles rammed. So there's some danger
to it," she added.

In the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest in southwestern Washington
three years ago, hikers returned to their car to find it had been
searched by two armed men who approached them, Heryford said. "They
told them, 'We know who you are, we know where you live. Get out of
here and don't come back.'

"The propensity for violence is great in these cases. Each time we've
gone against one of these things, they've had a weapon."

Washington forest officials have uncovered meth labs with varying
degrees of sophistication, ranging from pickups parked at campsites to
full-size military tents with separate sleeping and cooking quarters
and makeshift shacks.

"What we primarily get is these little mom-and-pop rolling labs. We
call them Beavis and Butt-head labs because it seems like anybody who
tries to do meth by this method is kind of an idiot," said Dan Fahrni,
law enforcement officer for the Gifford-Pinchot. "It's extremely
dangerous, and it's just an explosion waiting to happen.

"For the most part, they'll pull into an area, spend a day, maybe two,
cook up some meth, dump their spoils and then leave. If they don't get
caught, they might come back later," Fahrni said.

The lab operating in the Tahoma State Forest was discovered by state
Department of Natural Resources agent Jim Russell, who noticed some
unmarked trails leading into the woods off a logging trail. A burn
pile near the trail showed evidence of cold-pill wrappers and lithium
batteries, both indicators of methamphetamine manufacture. And when
Russell set up a surveillance of a plywood shack nearby, a dog started
barking.

A man inside the shack ran into the woods, but a 19-year-old Tacoma,
Wash., woman was arrested and later released on $25,000 bail.

Investigators equipped with full chemical protection gear moved into
the forest, and the location of at least five chemical dump sites over
a two-acre area prompted state officials to order the entire forest
closed in case there might be more. The closure is effective at least
until June 10.

"We shut down the forest because of the explosive danger involved and
the unknown dangers we had of other sites," Heryford said. "If hikers
were to come in here and started messing around, we're talking about
buckets of goo. It could go anywhere from burns to
fatalities."

[sidebar]

METH IN THE WOODS

The number of methamphetamine labs and associated chemical dumps found
on U.S. Forest Service land soared last year, as drug makers moved
from urban areas to the forests.

Source - USDA Forest Service
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake