Pubdate: Mon, 09 Oct 2006
Source: San Mateo County Times, The (CA)
Copyright: 2006 ANG Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/392
Author: Kelly Pakula, Staff Writer

METH WASTE POSES DANGER

Byproducts Showing Up In Creek Beds, Along Roadsides In  Rural County

REDWOOD CITY -- Several hundred miles away, a batch of 
methamphetamine is brewing in a clandestine lab.

And, along with the sought-after drug, a large amount  of hazardous 
waste is also being produced -- a  byproduct that's ending up in 
creek beds and along  roadsides in San Mateo County's more rural areas.

According to Dean Peterson, director of the San Mateo  County Office 
of Environmental Health Services, at  least once a month the 
Belmont-San Carlos Fire  Department, which handles hazmat incidents 
for the  county, is asked to inspect suspicious materials  discovered 
by county residents in areas such as La  Honda, Skylonda and Woodside.

Disguised in five-gallon buckets, water bottles and old  oil 
containers, methamphetamine byproducts may seem  benign, however, 
they can be explosive, corrosive and  highly toxic, Peterson said. He 
said the chances of a  person being fatally injured by these 
chemicals is unlikely, though they could suffer severe burns.

"We've seen what we've identified as drug lab waste for  a number of 
years," Peterson said.

"We had a big spike in drug lab waste in '95 and then  it kind of 
tapered off a bit," though "we've kind of  seen an increase in the 
last few years," he added. As  recently as Tuesday, the San Mateo 
County Narcotics  Task Force, along with the Department of Justice, 
responded to an area in Skylonda to investigate several  items that 
were possibly linked to a methamphetamine  lab. The materials, 
according to Narcotics Task Force Commander Mark Wyss, had the 
ability to cook up  to 20 pounds of methamphetamine.

Some speculate that the materials are being dumped 
by  methamphetamine producers operating out of the Central  Valley, 
but Wyss said there is no way of telling where  the waste comes from, 
as it is typically void of any  identifying marks.

According to Casey McEnry, a Drug Enforcement  Administration special 
agent, an estimated six pounds  of waste is produced per every pound 
of methamphetamine  made. According to the California Attorney 
General's  Office, in 1997, $8 million was spent cleaning up 
hazardous waste found at 1,600 clandestine labs.

Besides the dumping of hazardous byproducts, the  proliferation of 
methamphetamine has garnered national  attention recently with the 
final phase of the Combat  Methamphetamine Act going into effect last month.

The new federal law requires cold medications  containing 
pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed and  Claritin D, be placed behind 
the counter at pharmacies.  It also restricts the amount of 
pseudoephedrine-containing medications that one person  can buy in 
one day or over the course of a month.

Law enforcement officials hope the new law will deter  people from 
"smurfing," which is the act of going from  store to store to 
purchase ingredients, such as  household chemical products that can 
later be used to  make meth.

While the Combat Methamphetamine Act targets producers  of 
methamphetamine, Wyss said the number of meth labs  in the county has 
dropped. He said last year only seven  methamphetamine labs were 
located in the county. Wyss  added an estimated 80 percent of 
methamphetamine found  in the United States now comes from 
methamphetamine  labs in Mexico.

The last major meth lab bust in San Mateo County  occurred in May 
when the county's Narcotics Task Force,  along with the East Palo 
Alto Police Department and  other agencies, arrested six men on 
suspicion they were  running a methamphetamine extraction lab.

Police learned about the lab after Soledad police  searched a 
Watsonville man's home after he was seen  buying large amounts of 
pseudoephedrine pills from a  local pharmacy. The man, whom 
reportedly had 2,000  pseudoephedrine pills at his house, told police 
about a Methamphetamine lab located in East Palo Alto.

On May 5, police searched the home and arrested East  Palo Alto 
residents Angel Lara Garcia, 43, Benjamin  Covarrubias Ruezga, 49, 
and Dimas Magana, 44, along  with San Jose resident Marthel Carrillo, 
28, Eureka  resident Cesar Daniel Holguin, 40, and 
transient  Rigoberto Garcia Lara, 19.

Inside a building behind the house police found $25,000  in cash, 11 
handguns, three rifles and five assault  rifles. They also found 
66,990 pseudoephedrine pills in  packets, tens of thousands of pills 
that had already  been removed from the packets and 1 pound of 
heroin, 1  pound of cocaine and 5 pounds of methamphetamine,  police reported.

San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve  Wagstaffe said 
such large meth lab busts are rare in  the county, though an 
estimated 80 percent of the drug  cases the district attorney's 
office handles involve  methamphetamine. He said the drug of choice 
changed  four or five years ago from rock cocaine to  methamphetamine.

"Our case loads haven't gone up, but methamphetamine is  clearly the 
drug we see most often by a long shot,"  Wagstaffe said. "It's an 
extremely addictive drug."

While methamphetamine's presence in the Bay Area and  throughout 
California is evident, Wyss said its  popularity may dwindle as time 
passes. Shirley Lamarr,  a supervisor with the county's Choices 
program, agreed  with Wyss, calling methamphetamine a fad.

She said methamphetamine's growth mirrors every other  drug-related 
epidemic the Bay Area has seen.

"Five years ago ecstasy was the epidemic. Ten years ago  crack 
cocaine was the epidemic. Ten or 15 years ago  heroine was the 
epidemic," she said. "We're in a period  of time where 
(methamphetamine) is the epidemic right  now, but it's no different 
than any other epidemic we've been through."
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