POT WASTE POSES CHEMICAL DANGER

At -30 C, the tailings pond of a local grow-op still did not freeze.
That's because there were so many chemicals poured into the water that
it was a toxic cocktail, unattended and unfenced.

Police in the Cariboo region are finding dozens of industrial-sized
marijuana plantations like this one, each one with ponds and dump
spots riddled with bleach, fertilizers and fuels.

"We've been saying from the start that this is one more really
important reason for the importance of enforcement of marijuana
grow-ops and drug labs," said Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig
Douglass, who has personally helped in the takedown of recent
clandestine drug factories.

In the first six months of the Cariboo Region Integrated Marijuana
Enforcement (CRIME) Task Force, 35 of these sites were pinpointed by
police.

When the members move in, said this unit's spokesman, they immediately
walk into danger on top of whatever the suspects might pose.

"That is part of the risk we have to mitigate," said Const. Michael
McLaughlin.

"We are provided with some special training but when you are dealing
with the scale we are encountering in these Cariboo operations, it is
even more frustrating because the risk extends, yes, to investigators,
but also to wildlife, livestock, people who might happen to come upon
the place and not know what it is, it gets into the groundwater and
what will that do to wells? So it becomes a danger to local residents
and the ecosystem in general."

McLaughlin said it was eery to move in on locations in the dead of
winter and see gaping ponds of open water surrounded by snowbanks and
ice-bound land.

"That water should not be water. It should be frozen, so what is in
there that keeps it from freezing?" he said.

It is a concern that strikes to the core of the RCMP. Chief Supt.
Barry Clark, commander of the North District region, said leaky
generators to make electricity and contaminated soil from the growing
process gets thrown out like dishwater and there are no safety
standards applied to the use of herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers or
fuels.

"We need to work with our provincial partners; it is outside the realm
of our expertise," he said.

MLA Bob Simpson, the provincial representative for many of these
contaminated locations, suggested an interim measure while government
gets policies and procedures set for dealing with these crime scenes.

"We need a remediation team," he said, like a hazardous materials SWAT
squad equipped with all the impervious suits, breathing apparatus,
heavy equipment, proper containers, appropriate transportation of
materials, and ultimately a place to dispose of the toxins. They
should be mobile and swift in their restoration of these areas.

Also needed, authorities said, are analysis labs because the toxic
dumping is a crime and the ones convicted of growing the marijuana
should also be convicted of environmental degradation.

So far most of the CRIME task force's work has been done in fall and
winter. There is greater concern for what might become of these toxic
cesspools when spring arrives with a scary word on the warm wind: runoff.