METH DUMP FOUND

Toxic chemicals jettisoned from clandestine drug labs are costing
Surrey a bundle, and expenses are climbing as a three dumps were
found this month.

A third meth dump was found in South Surrey Friday morning, at 28
Avenue and 184 Street, bringing to three the number of dumps found in
Surrey in the past month.

Costs are significant. Surrey paid private firms more than $85,000
last year to clean up wastes from methamphetamine labs and marijuana
grow operations.

Some of those costs are recovered from homeowners when labs are
seized by police, but taxpayers are on the hook for chemicals dumped
in public areas.

A lead company disposing of the wastes says business in the region
has been booming.

Sean Barton, Project Co-ordinator with Hazco Environmental Services,
said since 2005, toxic clean-up from clandestine labs and grow
operations has jumped by about 30 per cent.

"We have seen an increase over the last two years in particular, both
in labs that are busted by the RCMP and the dump sites," Barton said.

"The dump sites are generated two different ways: either by an
investigation that has spooked the owners or labs that are expended.
They're finished, they just want to get rid of everything and move on."

Barton said the company's environmental services division has grown
by more than 30 per cent in two years and emergency response has
become a full-time position.

Barton now heads up emergency response for the company.

He attended a recent toxic clean-up in Clayton, where about 20
barrels of toxic waste - believed to be remnants from a
methamphetamine lab - were dumped at two locations.

"Our job is to identify, segregate, package for transport and then
dispose of it," Barton said.

Some of the more benign ingredients can be taken to special landfill
sites, but the majority has to be burned at industrial incinerators
in Swan Hills, Alberta.

Vivienne Wilke, Surrey's general manager of finance and technology,
said the city spent between $85,000 and $86,000 on clean up last
year, including grow ops.

She expects the 2007 clean up costs to be higher after the Clayton dump.

It's estimated the costs of that clean-up will be more than $50,000.

Mayor Dianne Watts said the city is in a tough position when it comes
to chemicals dumped in remote areas.

"When they dump the material, they do it in the middle of the night
in a remote area," Watts said.

"So it's very hard to catch these individuals.

"Unfortunately the city has had to pay for the expenses of cleaning it up."