Pubdate: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 Source: Now, The (Surrey, CN BC) Copyright: 2007 The Now Newspaper Contact: http://www.thenownewspaper.com/forms/lettersform.html Website: http://www.thenownewspaper.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1462 Author: Tom Zytaruk Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) CHEMICAL DUMP CLEARED Environment protection agencies will assess the impact two meth lab dumps found in Cloverdale this week are having on nearby land and water. Authorities cancelled plans to evacuate up to 200 homes Thursday night after the Surrey fire department and HAZCO Environmental conducted air quality and other tests at the sites and deemed them "safe and secure." Barrels, buckets and garbage bags containing dangerous chemicals like hydriodic, caustic and muriatic acid, red phosphorus and sodium hydroxide were found on a residential development site on the northwest corner of 182nd Street and 70th Avenue on Tuesday. The containers broke open after being pushed around with a backhoe, releasing a gaseous cloud that made the machine operator's tongue numb and caused quite a scare in the neighbourhood. At this site there were up to 10 garbage bags and 12 five-gallon buckets containing chemicals which, when they got wet, released a plume of gas about as high as a telephone pole and a quarter of a block long. Another dump site found in the 7300-block of 194th Street contained 10 45-gallon drums of chemicals and nine smaller containers. Both sites were put under guard and specialists from several agencies decided to put the neighbourhood on alert that people living within a half-kilometre radius of the sites might have to be evacuated from the area on Friday morning. That, however, didn't come to pass and both sites were expected to be cleaned up by 6 p.m. Friday. Besides the Surrey RCMP, fire department, city hall and school district, the GVRD Regulatory Enforcement, HAZCO, Emergency Social Services and environment and agriculture ministries were involved in the effort. At press time, Surrey Deputy Fire Chief Jon Caviligia said the surface of the first site was cleared up and that agencies would be testing the soil and nearby drainage ditches to see if more work needs to be done. "That's the next step," he said. Meantime, police had yet to identify the dumpers at press time. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek