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."