SOUTH TEXAS LAW OFFICERS DRIVE TWO DAYS TO BURN DRUGS

McALLEN, Texas -- Asked recently what Texas could do to help a border
police department like McAllen's, Chief Victor Rodriguez had a ready
answer: Give us a nearby place to burn seized drugs.

He then outlined a situation that stunned members of the state Senate
Criminal Justice Committee holding a field hearing in the Rio Grande Valley.

In a region that is a gateway for drugs coming from Latin America and bound
for cities throughout the United States, destroying drugs means sending a
caravan of vehicles and officers on a two-day trip costing $8,000 to $10,000.

For McAllen, in particular, it means unloading tons of contraband from the
8-foot by 40-foot evidence bunker and into a rented moving van, which is
then driven to a privately run incinerator near Dallas.

It's a journey nearly the length of Texas, and a task that requires seven
or eight officers. There's got to be backup vehicles, officers to guard the
drugs and, yes, each other. In recent years local police chiefs as well as
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents have been prosecuted for bribery for
helping drug traffickers get loads north.

Labor regulations require an overnight stop after such a long drive, adding
lodging on top of overtime costs. Then there's the bill for the actual burn
- -- calculated at about 40 cents to 50 cents per pound for several thousand
pounds. It's a trip that's repeated several times a year.

"The border, it is an international front, it does yield for us down here
large seizures of contraband," Rodriguez said. "Not only are we saddled
with the border geographically, above and beyond that we have to pay to
destroy this stuff and it can get expensive."

Webb County Sheriff's Department Capt. Ted Garcia agreed. The county's
evidence room has filled rapidly in recent months from a spree of cocaine
seizures, he said, meaning another costly trip to Dallas is imminent.

"You would think they would have one closer," he said.

There are three main facilities in Texas for incinerating drugs, state
Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said, and all are
privately operated.

For security reasons, she asked that they not be identified by name.
Besides Dallas, one is in El Paso and the other is in the northeastern
corner of the state near Louisiana.

The El Paso facility is accessible to police along the state's far western
border with Mexico. But for Laredo and cities in the lower Rio Grande
Valley it's about as distant as Dallas or Louisiana.

"You have to go by whatever TCEQ regulations are, so that can get kind of
complicated and expensive," she said. "When you've got about a million
pounds, it can add up."

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requires incinerators for
illegal drugs be dual-chamber, burn at minimum temperatures of 1,400
degrees Fahrenheit and have stacks stretching at least six feet above any
structure within 150 feet.

Cocaine, opiates, and methamphetamine burns are limited to 10 pounds in an
eight-hour period, marijuana to no more than 500 pounds an hour. Only
specific fuels can be used -- sweet natural gas, liquid petroleum gas,
electric power or fuel oil with less than one-half percent sulfur by weight.

U.S. Customs and Protection routinely makes seizures of a ton or more along
the border, with Border Patrol agents frequently coming upon bales of
marijuana or cocaine unloaded on the banks of the Rio Grande or into dump
trucks or other vehicles.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration keeps tallies on federal
seizures as well as larger ones by local police departments. During fiscal
year 2005, 1,077 tons of marijuana, 26 tons of cocaine, 715 pounds of
heroin, and 3.2 tons of methamphetamine were seized along the southwest border.

Evidence must be kept until a trafficker is convicted, and when it comes
time to destroy the drugs the federal government also faces a challenge.

"For obvious reasons of security and safety we can't reveal where we burn
or destroy our evidence, but it is a concern for us in terms of the
costliness of it," Houston-based DEA spokesman Ray D'Alessio said. "We're
exploring different options right now."

It would cost at least $5 million to build a new drug incinerator,
according to one estimate.

State Sen. John Whitmire, the Houston Democrat who chairs the Senate
Criminal Justice Committee, said he was astonished by Rodriguez's testimony.

"I promise you we'll fix this," he said at the Aug. 30 field hearing at
McAllen City Hall.

Whitmire aide Larance Coleman said research into the logistics of a local
facility was just beginning.

"We haven't ever really looked into this before," he said.