U.S. DENIES FUNDS FOR STATE METH CLEANUP; OFFICIALS MULL OPTIONS

Congress didn't deem Arkansas worthy of federal grant money to clean up
hazardous methamphetamine labs although the state led the nation last year
in the number of lab seizures per capita. As a result, federal and state
officials are scrambling to find money to cover cleanup costs.

State officials will gather at 3 p.m. Monday at the state Department of
Environmental Quality's conference room in Arkansas State Police
headquarters in Little Rock to explore funding options. "We're facilitating
the idea of getting together the critical players -- the state police, the
governor's office, the drug director and other law enforcement
representatives -- in a coordinated effort to find solutions to this funding
crisis," said Becky Keogh, deputy director of the state Department of
Environmental Quality. State agencies received word last week that federal
Drug Enforcement Administration grant money used to clean up methamphetamine
labs in 2000 had run out. That means state and local law enforcement
agencies will get the bills from hazardous material companies that clean up
and dispose of chemicals used to make methamphetamine. "It's just going to
wreck us," Jefferson County Sheriff Boe Fontaine said. "We shut down 50 labs
last year. We're never going to be able to afford to pay for cleanup."
Already this year, evidence technicians from the state Crime Laboratory in
Little Rock have responded to 180 methamphetamine-making sites across the
state, said lab Director Jim Clark. It generally cost from $2,000 to
$10,000 to clean up a lab depending on its size, according to police. The
chemicals found in a meth lab are often toxic or flammable, and they must be
cleaned up by a private company contracted by law enforcement officials.
Since 1998, the Drug Enforcement Administration has granted money through
the federal Community Oriented Police Service program to pay the cost of
methamphetamine lab cleanup across the nation. Congress changed the way the
program funds were distributed this year. Instead of giving the money to the
drug agency to dole out to state and local police, $35.7 million was
earmarked for 15 sites around the county, called methamphetamine "hot
spots." Arkansas was not one of them. "The funding that Congress has done
in this case is not ideal," U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., said. "I would
have expected the COPS funding to have continued as it had in previous
years.

This was not something I was aware of during the budget process." In
designating the "hot spots," Congress was concentrating on areas of the
country that were considered high in methamphetamine trafficking, Hutchinson
said. "I'm really angry with this, and I think the citizens would be, too,
if they knew," Fontaine said. "I really don't know how this situation could
have happened.

I think someone in Congress was asleep, and Arkansas got passed over." In
response to the change in funding, the agency started using the community
police program money left over from past years to reimburse state and local
police. Hutchinson and U.S. Sens. Tim Hutchinson and Blanche Lincoln have
recently asked for emergency appropriations to pay for methamphetamine lab
cleanup. Gov. Mike Huckabee is also working with congressional delegates and
the federal government to get some money, Huckabee spokesman Rex Nelson
said. Lincoln's office reported Friday that feedback from staff members of
the House and Senate Appropriations Committees has been favorable to the
requests for emergency money. "We feel encouraged that we have bipartisan
support to help move this along," said Jennifer Greeson, Lincoln spokesman.
Rep. Hutchinson said steps are being taken to correct the funding problem
for 2001. Keogh said the state Department of Environmental Quality is
considering putting some of its emergency response trust fund money into
methamphetamine lab cleanup.

She couldn't say Friday how much might go to cleanup. "Our role is to make
sure that law enforcement can continue their efforts [seizing
methamphetamine labs] and that citizens are protected from any hazardous
chemical issues," Keogh said. The Drug Enforcement Administration is
juggling some of its money, too. The agency is looking to absorb some of the
cost of methamphetamine cleanup through its assets-forfeiture fund. To do
so, however, police would be required to involve the drug agency in the meth
investigation before seizure or shortly thereafter. Further, the
investigation must hold the promise of asset seizures to allow the agency to
recoup cleanup costs. Police agencies may also be able to recoup some costs
from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, meth-making
operations continue to crop up in homes, cars and woods across Arkansas.
"We don't know where to go from here," St. Francis County Sheriff Dave
Parkman said. "These little portable labs, most are spontaneous. We don't
have time to contact anyone.

We just come up on them. And we don't need to slow down on breaking up these
labs. We just had two within a one-week period."