METH LABS PRODUCE COSTLY VALLEY HAZARDS

$30,000 Spent In Stevinson Cleanup; Junk From Lab Found Near Patterson

SACRAMENTO -- For three days last month, state contractors used a backhoe
on a Stevinson farm to clean out seven 3-foot-deep pits filled with waste
from a methamphetamine lab.

Cooking 1 pound of the drug yields 5 pounds of chemical byproducts,
officials said. The cleanup crew at the farm hauled away more than 30,000
pounds of contaminated dirt, chemical-saturated cat litter, empty pill
bottles and solvent cans.

Ten years after the Legislature added $6.5 million a year for meth cleanup,
the hazardous waste hole only seems deeper.

"It's kind of a static problem," said Adam Palmer, supervising hazardous
substances scientist with the Department of Toxic Substances Control. The
agency has removed 15,453 drug labs since the Legislature created the
program in 1995.

At least once a week, Stanislaus County officials find toxic trash from
labs strewn along rural roads, irrigation canals -- even in Dumpsters at
Interstate 5 rest stops.

Thursday night, on a roadside near a Patterson almond orchard, a farmer
reported five propane tanks and 10 large plastic trash bags filled with
empty camping fuel cans and other junk from a lab, according to the
Sheriff's Department.

"The law needed to be more clear and concise and tougher in my opinion,"
said Assemblyman Dave Cogdill, R-Modesto, who has championed a valley meth
crackdown -- with harsher penalties and restrictions on ingredients used to
manufacture the drug.

He has put forth a bill to make it a felony -- with a maximum three-year
prison sentence and $10,000 fine -- to dump meth by-products on
agricultural land.

Cogdill said he still is developing the legislation and does not expect
hearings until next year. The measure, Assembly Bill 1017, also would
create a public awareness program aimed at farmers who might stumble upon
illegal waste heaps.

State and local agencies will remove harmful materials, but, ultimately,
the responsibility falls on property owners to decontaminate their land.
Often, when it is impossible to recoup money from the perpetrators, the
state will pick up the tab for soil removal at larger waste sites, such as
the Stevinson farm.

"Our funding is limited. That will determine how much we'll dig or won't
dig," said Ivan Rodriguez, a hazardous-materials official who oversaw the
$30,000 cleanup in Stevinson for the state.

Health officials are worried that some farmers are removing meth waste
themselves, because "they're afraid of being tagged for the costs," said
Jim Simpson, program manager of Stanislaus County's hazardous-material
division.

"They're getting contaminated, their vehicles are getting contaminated," he
said. "It's just down-the-road exposure to everybody."

Simpson said law enforcement or fire officials need to be called. When
hazardous-waste cleanup experts come in, they wear respirators and
protective suits to keep from coming in contact with chemicals that can
burn the skin, eyes and throat.