COPS PUSH METH LABS OUT OF CITIES - INTO WOODS

ASHFORD, Wash. - In the dark evergreen forests that shroud the flanks
of Mount Rainier, there always has been a whiff of danger. The paw
print of a black bear in the mud. A cougar's gold fur glinting through
the brush.

These days, the biggest hazards are man-made.

The recent discovery of a makeshift shack, a camp stove and several
containers of chemicals - the makings of a major backwoods
methamphetamine lab - has prompted the closure of the 26,000-acre
Tahoma State Forest in western Washington.

The action was taken to allow officers time to track down widely
scattered hazardous chemical dump sites. And it marks the first
shutdown of an entire forest because of what authorities say is an
alarming increase in meth labs moving out of the cities and into the
nation's most remote lands.

"The urban cops have done such a good job of detecting these meth
labs, it's pushed them out of the towns and neighborhoods and into the
woods," said Dennis Heryford, chief investigator for the state
Department of Natural Resources.

"One of the biggest reasons we're finding them in rural areas is that
there are fewer chances of being detected. There are fewer cops and
generally fewer people," said Kim Thorsen, the Forest Service's deputy
director for law enforcement. "If you're cooking meth in your back
yard, your neighbors are going to smell it, number one. Number two is
the asset forfeiture laws. If you're cooking in your house, we can
seize your house or your truck, whereas on public land, you're really
not in that kind of situation."

Drug enforcement officials consider methamphetamine the
fastest-growing illegal drug in the country - and its use has
skyrocketed in small towns of the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest,
where supply links to imported drugs are more tenuous. Methamphetamine
easily can be manufactured with cold medicine, fertilizer and other
readily available chemicals. The highly toxic and volatile nature of
those chemicals is a particular problem in the forests, where chemical
dumps foul streams, poison wildlife and leave whole swaths of greenery
brown from pollution that could take years to recover.

In October, a 46-acre fire on the Shawnee National Forest in southern
Illinois was touched off by a clandestine methamphetamine lab,
authorities said.

Law enforcement officials also have found a variety of booby traps in
the forests associated with backwoods meth labs and marijuana farms -
including shotgun shell booby traps, fishhooks hung at eye level along
trails and pits of sharpened stakes designed to impale anyone who
falls in them.

And, most meth lab operators are armed. In April, local sheriff's
deputies and a U.S. Forest Service agent were shot at by a meth lab
operator while making an arrest in Phelps County, Mo., although no one
was injured. Three suspects were arrested.

Washington forest officials have uncovered meth labs with varying
degrees of sophistication, ranging from pickups parked at campsites to
full-size military tents with separate sleeping and cooking quarters
and makeshift shacks. "What we primarily get is these little
mom-and-pop rolling labs. We call them Beavis and Butthead labs
because it seems like anybody who tries to do meth by this method is
kind of an idiot," said Dan Fahrni, a law enforcement officer. "It's
extremely dangerous, and it's just an explosion waiting to happen.

"For the most part, they'll pull into an area, spend a day, maybe two,
cook up some meth, dump their spoils and then leave. If they don't get
caught, they might come back later," Fahrni said.

The lab operating in the Tahoma State Forest was discovered by state
Department of Natural Resources agent Jim Russell, who noticed some
unmarked trails leading into the woods off a logging trail.

A burn pile near the trail showed evidence of cold-pill wrappers and
lithium batteries, both indicators of methamphetamine manufacture. And
when Russell set up a surveillance of a plywood shack nearby, a dog
started barking.

A man inside the shack ran into the woods, but a 19-year-old Tacoma
woman was arrested and later released on $25,000 bail.

Investigators equipped with full chemical protection gear moved into
the forest, and the location of at least five chemical dump sites over
a 2-acre area prompted state officials to order the entire forest
closed in case there might be more. The closure is effective at least
until June 10.

"We shut down the forest because of the explosive danger involved and
the unknown dangers we had of other sites," Heryford said. "If hikers
were to come in here and started messing around, we're talking about
buckets of goo. It could go anywhere from burns to fatalities."