VOLUNTEERS PREPARE TO DEAL WITH METH LABS

If crystal meth labs are going to move into rural Saskatchewan, Bryan
Redekop wants to be prepared.

Redekop, the chief of the Herbert Volunteer Fire Department, was one
of about 100 rural firefighters and other emergency workers to take in
a training session on meth labs as part of the Saskatchewan Volunteer
Firefighters' Association's annual training symposium Saturday in White City.

"You hear so much about it lately, you see documentaries on TV and it
just seems like it's a growing thing out in the rural areas," he said.

Though, he said, there was no meth problem at the present in his
community, Redekop said there was no harm in being ready.

"I really don't know ... it's hard to say (if it will become a
problem)," he said. "But from what you hear about it, it's moving this
way."

Special Agent Steve Bauer of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF), who led the session, couldn't agree
more.

"(Canada's) absence of laws, availability of precursors and rural
space makes it more likely that you'll have a problem rather than less
likely," he said.

He said recognition is the biggest problem most rural emergency
workers are facing since training isn't readily available outside
major centres.

"It's putting together a bunch of disparate facts or objects that you
see and putting those all together in your head and saying, 'Wait a
minute,'" he explained. "If all I do is get people to stop for just a
second and say, 'There's something maybe going on here,' that alone
will be advantageous to all of them."

Gloria Prentice, an emergency medical responder in Beechy, said while
it's often firefighters who get the call to go to such labs, she could
potentially need to respond to someone who has inhaled the toxic fumes
as well.

"Realistically I have no idea what they look like or what they entail
or anything about them. I know nothing about crystal meth other than
it's there," she said.

Rick Watson, a retired Regina police officer and now the president of
the Saskatchewan chapter of the International Association of Arson
Investigators, said many rural emergency workers are only now finding
out that crystal meth labs are not just a big-city problem. And
without the resources and training those in cities have access to,
this sort of information is invaluable.

"The smaller part-time guys, that's where the danger is," he said.
"This guy's a butcher by day or the hardware store manager and all of
a sudden he gets called into an abandoned farmhouse that has all this
weird stuff in it.

"The trend is for these meth labs to be in rural areas or obscure
places," he continued. "People in the bigger centres have HAZMAT teams
and professional fire departments have all the resources. But in the
rural areas where these labs could be and probably will be ... the
trend is to hide them away.

"We've kind of made ourselves bit of a Mecca for these guys. We don't
know very much about it, our laws are kind of slack compared to the
States."