Pubdate: Wed, 03 Mar 2004
Source: Duluth News-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2004 Duluth News-Tribune
Contact:  http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/553
Author: Chris Hamilton, News Tribune Staff Writer
Series: link http://www.mapinc.org/source/Duluth
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

HOME METH LABS LEAVE TOXIC TRAIL

The evidence didn't make much sense to John DeSanto, St. Louis County
chief prosecutor, the first time a meth lab case landed on his desk.

Investigators had listed what sounded like common household items,
discovered in a shack next to a Meadowlands mobile home: empty boxes
of Sudafed, coffee filters, batteries, a blender, a crockpot...

"What kind of case is that?" DeSanto asked. "There's nothing illegal
about having that stuff."

What a difference two years can make. Meth labs have become a hot
topic for law enforcement, health officials and legislators statewide.

Clandestine meth labs have been discovered in every one of Minnesota's
87 counties, said Deborah Durkin, an environmental specialist with the
Minnesota Department of Health. Up to an estimated $4 million was
spent last year by city and county governments to clean them up.

Illegal-drug experts say the labs not only indicate a jump in meth use
but represent a new threat to Minnesota's environment -- as well as to
the police and emergency responders who find them and the children who
often live in the same houses.

This legislative session, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has proposed
spending and standards for cleanup and tougher penalties for meth makers.

Rural Issue So Far

In the past few years, the number of meth labs has expanded rapidly in
the Midwest and Minnesota.

In 1999 -- the first year the Department of Health tracked reported
data on meth lab seizures -- police discovered 18 labs across the
state. Last year, 425 were found, most in rural counties outside the
Twin Cities.

The numbers don't show the depth of the problem, said Special Agent
Paul Stevens, an anti-meth specialist with the Minnesota Bureau of
Criminal Apprehension. Law enforcement may find one in 10 meth labs,
he said.

"Thousands of Minnesotans are making meth," Stevens
said.

Iowa had double Minnesota's number of lab busts last year, while
Missouri had more than 2,000.

The problem appears to be following Interstate 35 from Iowa and
outside the Twin Cities, the Health Department says.

Since 1999, 14 labs have been discovered in St. Louis County; four
were found last year. While only a handful were reported in Carlton,
Lake and Cook counties, 14 were discovered last year in Pine County,
which borders Carlton County to the south.

Pine County expects to spend $1 million this year for meth lab
cleanups and law enforcement, Durkin said.

No labs were reported in Wisconsin during 1997, according to a 2002
Drug Enforcement Administration report to Congress. But by 2002, 78
meth lab seizures were reported by Wisconsin law enforcement agencies.

"Rural areas are better suited for producing it because the likelihood
of detection is less," said Carol Falkowski, a drug-research expert
for the Hazelden Foundation, a drug-treatment and research facility
based in Center City, Minn.

Not Brain Surgery

Meth labs are easily disassembled.

"Box labs" are small enough to fit into the back seat of a car or atop
a toilet tank lid, said Sgt. Dennin Bauers of the Duluth Police
Department's narcotics unit.

Meth labs have been found in isolated cabins and deer stands that dot
Northeastern Minnesota, said Special Agent Jerry Koneczny, a BCA meth
lab expert based in Duluth.

"Anyone who can read can make meth," said Durkin, a member of the
Minnesota Multi-Agency Meth Taskforce charged with training law
enforcement to deal with meth.

A meth maxim is that anyone who can bake a cake can make meth. Unlike
cocaine or heroin, a suburban 15-year-old can make it. The kid doesn't
need to know any Peruvian drug lords or Chicago gang members, Durkin
said.

Minnesota meth labs typically produce only enough for a few friends
and the cookers, as the lab chemists are called, Durkin said.

The majority of Minnesota's meth -- up to 90 percent, the DEA says --
comes from Mexico or California "superlabs," capable of making 10
pounds or more at a time.

"They call regular (imported) meth '3.2,' like the weak beer," said
Investigator Tim Peterson, head of the Boundary Waters Drug Task
Force, based in Virginia. That's because the middlemen bringing it
into the state and street dealers almost always dilute the product to
skim some for themselves, he said.

Not the Stereotype

These are not the kinds of laboratories where scientists wear white
coats and goggles and use state-of-the-art instruments.

Recipes are traded in jails and prisons, passed along in battered and
smudged notebooks, or downloaded from the Internet -- something the
News Tribune had no problem doing. Stevens said, on average, a cooker
will teach nine people how to make meth.

With most labs, it takes about eight hours to set up, cook the
product, dispose of the waste and take apart the lab, a 2002 DEA
report says.

Cookers can use dozens of products -- from match books, farm
fertilizer and paint thinner -- in myriad ways to produce the drug.

It's basic chemistry. A series of simple steps are conducted to
separate certain chemicals from household products. Other common
materials act as catalysts to speed up and end the reactions.

The mixture is reduced into powder on a stovetop or in a microwave. It
can then be converted to a more potent water-soluble, crystallized
form, called crystal meth.

Every step of the way, there lurks a volatile and caustic prospect.
Deadly gases, often sweet smelling, are made. Many of the containers,
such as plastic coolers and propane tanks, leak.

The dangerous chemical mixtures can remain on household surfaces for
months or years after production, says a cleanup guide produced by the
Minnesota Department of Health. That prospect is especially risky for
children, health experts say.

Any combination of sketchy recipes, intoxicated cooks and flammable
vapors can start a fire, Stevens said. Between 25 percent and 40
percent of Minnesota meth labs are discovered exactly that way, he
said.

That alone can endanger firefighters, who have no idea what they're
getting into, Stevens said. In November, a fire in an Otter Tail
County house with a meth lab killed two young girls.

In recent years, regional hospitals have reported more people coming
in with suspicious fire and chemical burns to their hands and faces.

"Nobody will ever come in (to the hospital) and admit to what they
were doing," said Dr. Bob Zotti, an emergency room physician at St.
Mary's Medical Center in Duluth. "They'll be coughing and short of
breath and say they were working in the garage with some fumes or
cleaning paintbrushes in an enclosed space. But you can never tell who
to believe sometimes."

Environmental Threat

For every pound of meth produced, 5 to 7 pounds of toxic waste are
created, the Minnesota Department of Health says.

Local police and drug enforcement agents have seen the chemical waste
dumped down tubs, sinks and outhouses and into lakes. Cookers
sometimes use ice houses and stuff their waste down the augered hole.

Two years ago, private contractors were needed to dig up part of a
backyard in Chisholm because meth cookers just poured their waste in
the grass and septic tank, Koneczny said.

Steve Leppala, of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in Duluth,
said his agency has had to oversee the cleanup of about 10 labs in the
past three years. The Chisholm cleanup cost $7,500, he said.

The cost of decontamination, which is done by private companies,
unofficially falls to city and county governments and typically runs
between $3,000 and $10,000 per lab. Meth cookers are usually indigent,
the state Multi-Agency Meth Taskforce says.

The MPCA also reports spending $400,000 of state Superfund money on
testing and cleaning contaminated soil, septic systems and wells
because of meth labs.

Also, an unrecorded number of Minnesota police, health, social service
and other agency workers have collapsed or become ill at meth lab sites.

One Northeastern Minnesota law enforcement officer permanently lost
half his lung capacity after helping to seize a local meth lab, said
Koneczny, who is trained to dismantle labs.

The Department of Health also reports people who unknowingly moved
into former meth lab sites and developed symptoms of chest and
respiratory ailments months after the lab chemicals were removed.

Cleaning Solution

Minnesota laws do not require landlords, renters, homeowners or meth
makers to pay for cleanup. And there is no designated state fund for
it.

Durkin said only 13 Minnesota counties -- none in the Northland --
have a meth-cleanup ordinance in place. Cook and Itasca counties are
working on ordinances, according to a Department of Health report. And
St. Louis, Carlton and Lake counties are looking into it.

A bill introduced in the Legislature last month would require
standardized hazardous-materials remediation before property,
including vehicles, could be reoccupied or sold. If a vehicle or
property was once contaminated, the bill states it also must be noted
on the title or deed.

Fairmont Rep. Bob Gunther and Sen. Julie Rosen, both Republicans, said
they wrote the methamphetamine bill in response to the rapidly growing
problem in their rural southern Minnesota community, 10 miles from the
Iowa border.

The Gunther-Rosen bill also would:

   Require the county sheriff or health departments to be responsible
for overseeing the cleanup.

.  Require a certified lab cleanup process.

   Create a low-interest loan cleanup fund for local governments; the
total amount for the fund is undesignated.

.  Require that people convicted of producing the meth pay restitution
to the public agencies involved in the response and cleanup; a judge
still has discretion to suspend costs if the person is indigent.

.  Require all local law enforcement to report seized labs to the state
government.

Bad Numbers

A major problem encountered by researchers is underreporting of meth
lab seizures by Minnesota law enforcement agencies.

Durkin blames the bad numbers on a lack of cooperation from law
enforcement agencies that simply aren't taking the time to report
every case to the state or federal government.

Only one-third of the state's lab seizures are reported to the
National Clandestine Lab Database, according to a 2003 University of
Minnesota study. With that incomplete information, the DEA, which
maintains the database, underreports on its Web site that Minnesota
had a decline in meth lab busts -- from 165 in 2002 to 142 in 2003.

"If you get the numbers on the map, then people are going to pay
attention," Durkin said. "We need to get those labs on the map to help
describe the scope." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake