Pubdate: Sun, 17 Jul 2005
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2005 Star Tribune
Contact:  http://www.startribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266
Author: Donna Halvorsen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH WASTE POSES DANGER

As volunteers cleaned up roadside litter this spring, the state 
Health Department warned that they might come across the discarded 
remains of methamphetamine drug labs that could be dangerous if 
inhaled or touched.

Some counties have been dealing with the meth problem for five years 
or more. Meth labs once were largely confined to rural areas, but the 
problem is moving closer to the Twin Cities, officials say.

"It's not just something people are doing on farms anymore," said 
Deborah Durkin, an environmental scientist in the Health Department's 
methamphetamine program who has spoken increasingly to Twin Cities 
groups about meth in the past year. "The pattern throughout the 
Midwest is rural saturation followed by increased numbers of users 
and meth-makers in urban areas."

Durkin said she has heard of injuries from opening chemical bottles 
or picking up meth waste, but none that was serious. "Nobody's 
keeping track of that in any way," she said. "There isn't as much 
concern as probably there should be. Typically, nobody gets too 
concerned until somebody gets hurt."

Anoka County led the state in meth lab seizures last year, with 21, 
followed by Ramsey County with 14, Blue Earth County with 12 and 
Dakota, Sherburne, Mille Lacs and Olmsted counties with 10 each.

"It's an epidemic, and it has been for some time," said Capt. Dave 
Jenkins of the Anoka County Sheriff's Office, noting that meth waste 
isn't found just along roadways anymore.

"We're finding an increase in labs that have been discarded either in 
public dumpsters in commercial areas, city hall [bins], recycling 
centers and on the side of the road," Jenkins said. "We've found 
several in city parks as well. Typically, they'll disguise it by 
putting it in a duffel bag or a sealable large Rubbermaid container 
or something like that."

In Dakota County, nearly half the 1,100 drug arrests last year were 
for the manufacture, sale and use of methamphetamine. "We've had our 
fair share of abandoned meth labs," said Sgt. John Grant, supervisor 
of the Dakota County Drug Task Force. "Cooks just basically dump 
their components along the roadside. We come across those quite a bit."

In Chisago County this spring, citizens and others cleaning up 
roadsides frequently were finding cold medicine packaging and 
anhydrous tanks, which resemble propane tanks. One tank being 
retrieved by a lab technician blew up, but the technician wasn't 
hurt, Sheriff Todd Rivard said.

"Someone else who didn't know what they were doing might have gotten 
hurt," he said. "You shouldn't touch any of them, but the ones with 
green valves could blow up if there's stuff in it, and it's 
pressurized. Normally, [meth-makers] don't throw out a tank that's 
got anhydrous in it."

The amount of waste found along Isanti County roads "definitely shows 
the volume of manufacturing that's going on in the county, that's for 
sure," Sheriff's Department investigator Chris Janssen said.

"It's definitely local people who are making the meth and dumping the 
waste. They're not going to drive 20 miles in their car to get rid of 
it. They don't want to get caught with it."
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MAP posted-by: Beth