SOUTH TEXAS LAW OFFICERS DRIVE TWO DAYS TO BURN DRUGS

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.