Pubdate: Mon, 12 Sep 2005
Source: Salisbury Post (NC)
Copyright: 2005 Post Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.salisburypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/380
Author: Mark Wineka
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

Series: Coming Clean (Part 2B)

LOOKING ELSEWHERE FOR HELP

Washington Ahead Of Others In Dealing With Drug Lab Problems

When it comes to cleaning up former methamphetamine labs, North Carolina 
can take some comfort knowing that it has rules in place to tell people how 
it must be done.

North Carolina stands ahead of the majority of other states that either 
have no rules at all or provide their citizens only voluntary guidelines 
for cleaning up a meth lab site once it has been dismantled.

But North Carolina also could be considered behind states out west that 
have been dealing with the meth cleanup issue a long time.

Washington is a good example.

The state of Washington passed legislation in 1990 -- 15 years ago -- that 
mandated the cleanup of properties contaminated by meth labs. The state's 
Division of Environmental Health has a Clandestine Drug Lab Program manned 
by two full-time people.

For the states such as North Carolina which have adopted cleanup rules, 
Washington often has served as the model.

"It's sort of a multi-disciplinary approach -- not just one or two entities 
get involved," says Paul Marchant, public health advisor for the 
Clandestine Drug Lab Program.

The illegal manufacturing of methamphetamine has spread in a definite 
west-to-east wave across the United States over the past two decades.

It recently has hit North Carolina hard, with 322 meth labs reported in the 
state last year.

Predictably, most of the clandestine labs have been uncovered in the 
state's western mountains, but the do-it-yourself production of the drug 
continues to march eastward.

Rowan County, located in the state's Piedmont region, has seen at least 11 
meth-lab operations since 2000.

In April, the state's Commission for Health Services approved permanent 
rules for the cleanup of former meth lab sites -- procedures that have to 
be followed before a residence, business or other property can be 
reoccupied again.

Unlike North Carolina, Washington has numeric decontamination standards for 
methamphetamine, total volatile organic compounds, lead and mercury.

The decontamination standards must be attained before local health 
departments in Washington can clear former meth-lab sites for reoccupancy.

To see if a property meets the decontamination standard of .1 micrograms of 
methamphetamine per hundred square centimeters of surface area, the sampler 
takes a wipe of all surface areas. Wipes also are taken for lead, and air 
samples are taken for VOCs and mercury -- all have numeric decontamination 
standards.

In July, Washington State's Department of Health wrote a "Rationale" for 
establishing the standards.

"The goal of the decontamination standards is to provide protection for all 
people, particularly for infants and children, who are thought to be most 
susceptible to the toxic effects of residual chemicals," the Rationale said.

Although a large variety of chemicals may be in the air and on surfaces at 
contaminated sites, the report says, the Washington State Department of 
Health selected four "of primary concern commonly associated with these 
types of labs."

North Carolina health officials have shied away from numeric standards for 
any chemicals, contending the numbers used continue to be more arbitrary 
than health-based.

Washington also certifies and provides training (a three-day course) for 
the contractors who evaluate and clean up former meth labs. The training 
covers property assessment, decontamination techniques, work plan 
development and environmental sampling.

Marchant says Washington has 25 to 30 certified contractors in the state.

North Carolina does not require any certification of the people who clean 
up sites, nor does it provide the training for contractors. The state's 
Division of Public Health provides a list of five contractors with 
experience in meth-lab cleanup, but property owners are not bound to that list.

Washington keeps an active Web site listing all of the known contaminated 
and decontaminated meth-lab sites. North Carolina does not.

The Web site tries to help potential buyers or renters determine whether 
the property they're interested in was ever a meth-lab site.

"I would want to know," Marchant says, "and private citizens can at least 
make informed decisions."

Washington state law also requires notice on property titles if places have 
ever be used for making methamphetamine.

As in North Carolina, local health departments in Washington state oversee 
the decontamination process.

In Washington, Marchant says, someone from a local health department must 
visit the meth-lab site within 24 hours after it is uncovered to assess the 
level of contamination.

The health department does not have to return to the site after its initial 
assessment, but the contractor must submit to health officials photographs, 
a review of its cleaning procedures and decontamination samples.

The health department then has to sign off on the decontamination and 
approve the property for reoccupancy.

North Carolina's rules for cleanup are somewhat similar. They require a 
pre-decontamination assessment; a decontamination that spells out what has 
to be wiped off, washed, painted, neutralized, ventilated and/or discarded 
at a site; a report citing the decontamination measures taken; and a review 
and signing off by the health department.

The health departments in North Carolina are never required to make an 
on-site inspection of the sites, though some do. After the cleaning is 
complete, the health departments here must keep the documentation related 
to the cleanup for at least three years.

Joyce Hartman Jones, who paid a contractor for Crime Scene Cleaners Inc. 
$1,000 to satisfy North Carolina's new rules, says she was ripped off back 
in May and that she could have cleaned up her rental home better on her own.

Jones took photographs showing how dirty her property remained after the 
contractor had left.

"You see these walls have not been wiped down," she said recently when she 
took Post reporters to her rental property, which law enforcement raided as 
a meth lab site in late March. "I'm going to hire me a lawyer."

The contractor's cleanup, as documented on a state template, satisfied the 
local health department, which determined (without an inspection) that the 
property could be occupied again.

Washington's Clandestine Drug Lab Program tells property owners that the 
average decontamination costs $6,500 per a 1,200-square-foot home.

In Washington, 50 percent of residential drug labs are found on rental 
properties. And the illegal manufacture of methamphetamine remains a huge 
problem. Washington state had 944 meth-lab seizures last year.

Marchant acknowledges that more has to be done on the national level to 
look at the toxicity and exposures related to chemicals left behind in 
cooking meth and what the health effects are.

With its standards, is Washington being overly safe or not safe enough? 
Marchant said health officials believe they have brought cleanup to a safe 
level, though they cannot be certain.

To reach its methamphetamine standard, for example, the Department of 
Health reviewed scientific studies that focused primarily on prenatal 
exposure during pregnancy in humans and on high-dose studies in animals.

U.S. House Bill 798, introduced this year, calls for the nation to come up 
with health-based, cleanup standards for meth-lab sites.

It instructs the Environmental Protection Agency, in consultation with the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, "to develop practical, 
cost-effective guidelines for site assessment and remediation of 
contaminants in former methamphetamine labs."

"The ultimate goal of these guidelines is to determine cleanup measures 
required to ensure a former meth lab is safe for human habitation," the 
bill says. "... These voluntary guidelines would not be a federal mandate 
but can serve as a basis for state legislatures and state agencies in 
developing legal code and regulations."

The bill also calls on the EPA to establish a research program identifying 
the chemicals of concern, the types of level of exposure to these chemicals 
and the effectiveness of various cleanup techniques.

The legislative focus in North Carolina this year has not been on cleanup 
but on prevention of meth labs. House Bill 248, which passed in August, 
requires that certain over-the-counter cold tablets be placed behind 
pharmacy counters.

Pseudoephedrine and ephedrine in the cold medications are key ingredients 
in making meth.

Now purchasers of these products must be at least 18, show an 
identification and sign a log. The law limits purchases of these products 
to no more than two packages at a time and no more than three packages 
within 30 days without a prescription.

Most liquid and gel-cap forms of these cold products will remain on store 
shelves because no meth labs uncovered in North Carolina have reported the 
use of gels or liquids for the key ingredients.

Attorney General Roy Cooper pushed the new law, modeled after one in 
Oklahoma. Cooper says the measure has resulted in an 85 percent drop in 
meth labs in Oklahoma.

Cooper's office reports that 124 children were removed from meth labs in 
the state last year. So far this year, more than 80 children have been 
removed from homes where meth was being cooked.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman