HAZARDS IN THE HILLS': DISCARDED METH MATERIALS CAN KILL IN SECONDS

Hazardous Materials Duty Officer Wayne Briley likes to reminisce
about the days when plastic jugs and bottles found by the road were
full of environmentally harmful waste oil, but with methamphetamine
use and manufacture becoming more popular in Mendocino County, every
call has the potential to be a dump of lethal chemicals.

"It takes a lot of material to make meth, and 95 percent of it is
waste," Briley said

In addition to his job as hazardous materials duty officer, Briley
also gives a presentation he calls Hazards in the Hills,' a tutorial
on how to recognize the leftovers from methamphetamine production,
which can include flammable liquids and solids, acids, bases and acid
gases under high pressure, all of which are both unstable and dangerous.

"It's all at the extreme end of the scale," Briley said of the
chemicals. "If you walk into the room with it, it will kill you."

Many of the by-products of methamphetamine production are stored in
30-gallon trash cans and large drums with their tops covered by bed
sheets. Cooks strain the methamphetamine mixture through these sheets
to separate the drug from the remaining chemicals.

These mixtures are biphasic, meaning they are two chemicals layered
one on top of the other. Usually these are an acid or base on the
bottom and a flammable liquid on top. Briley said a single spark is
often all it takes to set off these mixtures.

Another thing Briley and his team often find are binder pits. These
are collections of the binding material that holds ephedrine pills
together and solvents used to separate them. Briley said the binder
is not dangerous but the solvents are often highly flammable.

Briley also cautions people to be wary of collections of containers
that smell strongly of almonds, dead animals, rotten eggs or vinegar.

"What you're smelling is hydrogen chloride gas," Briley said.

Hydrogen chloride gas is integral to making methamphetamine and
cannot be easily purchased. Most methamphetamine "cooks" make their
own by combining rock salt and hydrosulfuric acid in a sealed
container, adding more and more of each component until the reaction
stops and the gas has been extracted. Then they dump the container.

Many cooks use empty propane canisters to make this mixture. The
tanks are not rated to contain the acid and often decay and fall apart.

"These are little time bombs waiting to go off and release poison
gas," Briley said.

Hydrogen chloride is extremely toxic. When it's inhaled, it
immediately eats away at the lungs and can kill in a matter of minutes.

"One breath knocks you down, and the second breath kills you," Briley said.

Briley said anyone who thinks they have found a methamphetamine waste
dump should stay away from it and contact either the Major Crimes
Task Force or Mendocino County Public Health.

There are a lot of ways to manufacture methamphetamine, but in
Mendocino County the primary method is the red phosphorus and iodine
method or "the red method."

To make the drug this way, cooks will first grind up ephedrine
tablets and then pour solvent over the powder to separate the binder
in the pills from the ephedrine. Any number of solvents can be used
for this including, acetone, denatured alcohol and ether.

The best labs use benzene, which has been proven to cause cancer in
humans. Briley said most Mendocino county cooks use Coleman gas as a solvent.

Once the binder has been separated from the ephedrine,
methamphetamine cooks usually dump binder-solvent soup, either in
open pits or in containers that they leave in public places, Briley
said. The binder is not dangerous, but most of the solvents used are
highly flammable.

The ephedrine is mixed with red phosphorus and other chemicals and
cooked down. Professional cooks will often use a device called a
mantel, which is a piece of lab equipment, to make the drug, Briley
said. Those without the sophistication or means will use whatever is
available, from kitchen appliances to camp stoves.

When the mixture has cooked enough, hydrogen chloride gas is added to
the mix and the methamphetamine falls to the bottom of the container.
The mix is then strained through cloth to separate the drug from the chemicals.

The entire process requires only a matter of hours, and a successful
cook can create up to three pounds of the drug overnight.