Series: Coming Clean (Part 2B)

LOOKING ELSEWHERE FOR HELP

Washington Ahead Of Others In Dealing With Drug Lab Problems

When it comes to cleaning up former methamphetamine labs, North Carolina
can take some comfort knowing that it has rules in place to tell people how
it must be done.

North Carolina stands ahead of the majority of other states that either
have no rules at all or provide their citizens only voluntary guidelines
for cleaning up a meth lab site once it has been dismantled.

But North Carolina also could be considered behind states out west that
have been dealing with the meth cleanup issue a long time.

Washington is a good example.

The state of Washington passed legislation in 1990 -- 15 years ago -- that
mandated the cleanup of properties contaminated by meth labs. The state's
Division of Environmental Health has a Clandestine Drug Lab Program manned
by two full-time people.

For the states such as North Carolina which have adopted cleanup rules,
Washington often has served as the model.

"It's sort of a multi-disciplinary approach -- not just one or two entities
get involved," says Paul Marchant, public health advisor for the
Clandestine Drug Lab Program.

The illegal manufacturing of methamphetamine has spread in a definite
west-to-east wave across the United States over the past two decades.

It recently has hit North Carolina hard, with 322 meth labs reported in the
state last year.

Predictably, most of the clandestine labs have been uncovered in the
state's western mountains, but the do-it-yourself production of the drug
continues to march eastward.

Rowan County, located in the state's Piedmont region, has seen at least 11
meth-lab operations since 2000.

In April, the state's Commission for Health Services approved permanent
rules for the cleanup of former meth lab sites -- procedures that have to
be followed before a residence, business or other property can be
reoccupied again.

Unlike North Carolina, Washington has numeric decontamination standards for
methamphetamine, total volatile organic compounds, lead and mercury.

The decontamination standards must be attained before local health
departments in Washington can clear former meth-lab sites for reoccupancy.

To see if a property meets the decontamination standard of .1 micrograms of
methamphetamine per hundred square centimeters of surface area, the sampler
takes a wipe of all surface areas. Wipes also are taken for lead, and air
samples are taken for VOCs and mercury -- all have numeric decontamination
standards.

In July, Washington State's Department of Health wrote a "Rationale" for
establishing the standards.

"The goal of the decontamination standards is to provide protection for all
people, particularly for infants and children, who are thought to be most
susceptible to the toxic effects of residual chemicals," the Rationale said.

Although a large variety of chemicals may be in the air and on surfaces at
contaminated sites, the report says, the Washington State Department of
Health selected four "of primary concern commonly associated with these
types of labs."

North Carolina health officials have shied away from numeric standards for
any chemicals, contending the numbers used continue to be more arbitrary
than health-based.

Washington also certifies and provides training (a three-day course) for
the contractors who evaluate and clean up former meth labs. The training
covers property assessment, decontamination techniques, work plan
development and environmental sampling.

Marchant says Washington has 25 to 30 certified contractors in the state.

North Carolina does not require any certification of the people who clean
up sites, nor does it provide the training for contractors. The state's
Division of Public Health provides a list of five contractors with
experience in meth-lab cleanup, but property owners are not bound to that list.

Washington keeps an active Web site listing all of the known contaminated
and decontaminated meth-lab sites. North Carolina does not.

The Web site tries to help potential buyers or renters determine whether
the property they're interested in was ever a meth-lab site.

"I would want to know," Marchant says, "and private citizens can at least
make informed decisions."

Washington state law also requires notice on property titles if places have
ever be used for making methamphetamine.

As in North Carolina, local health departments in Washington state oversee
the decontamination process.

In Washington, Marchant says, someone from a local health department must
visit the meth-lab site within 24 hours after it is uncovered to assess the
level of contamination.

The health department does not have to return to the site after its initial
assessment, but the contractor must submit to health officials photographs,
a review of its cleaning procedures and decontamination samples.

The health department then has to sign off on the decontamination and
approve the property for reoccupancy.

North Carolina's rules for cleanup are somewhat similar. They require a
pre-decontamination assessment; a decontamination that spells out what has
to be wiped off, washed, painted, neutralized, ventilated and/or discarded
at a site; a report citing the decontamination measures taken; and a review
and signing off by the health department.

The health departments in North Carolina are never required to make an
on-site inspection of the sites, though some do. After the cleaning is
complete, the health departments here must keep the documentation related
to the cleanup for at least three years.

Joyce Hartman Jones, who paid a contractor for Crime Scene Cleaners Inc.
$1,000 to satisfy North Carolina's new rules, says she was ripped off back
in May and that she could have cleaned up her rental home better on her own.

Jones took photographs showing how dirty her property remained after the
contractor had left.

"You see these walls have not been wiped down," she said recently when she
took Post reporters to her rental property, which law enforcement raided as
a meth lab site in late March. "I'm going to hire me a lawyer."

The contractor's cleanup, as documented on a state template, satisfied the
local health department, which determined (without an inspection) that the
property could be occupied again.

Washington's Clandestine Drug Lab Program tells property owners that the
average decontamination costs $6,500 per a 1,200-square-foot home.

In Washington, 50 percent of residential drug labs are found on rental
properties. And the illegal manufacture of methamphetamine remains a huge
problem. Washington state had 944 meth-lab seizures last year.

Marchant acknowledges that more has to be done on the national level to
look at the toxicity and exposures related to chemicals left behind in
cooking meth and what the health effects are.

With its standards, is Washington being overly safe or not safe enough?
Marchant said health officials believe they have brought cleanup to a safe
level, though they cannot be certain.

To reach its methamphetamine standard, for example, the Department of
Health reviewed scientific studies that focused primarily on prenatal
exposure during pregnancy in humans and on high-dose studies in animals.

U.S. House Bill 798, introduced this year, calls for the nation to come up
with health-based, cleanup standards for meth-lab sites.

It instructs the Environmental Protection Agency, in consultation with the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, "to develop practical,
cost-effective guidelines for site assessment and remediation of
contaminants in former methamphetamine labs."

"The ultimate goal of these guidelines is to determine cleanup measures
required to ensure a former meth lab is safe for human habitation," the
bill says. "... These voluntary guidelines would not be a federal mandate
but can serve as a basis for state legislatures and state agencies in
developing legal code and regulations."

The bill also calls on the EPA to establish a research program identifying
the chemicals of concern, the types of level of exposure to these chemicals
and the effectiveness of various cleanup techniques.

The legislative focus in North Carolina this year has not been on cleanup
but on prevention of meth labs. House Bill 248, which passed in August,
requires that certain over-the-counter cold tablets be placed behind
pharmacy counters.

Pseudoephedrine and ephedrine in the cold medications are key ingredients
in making meth.

Now purchasers of these products must be at least 18, show an
identification and sign a log. The law limits purchases of these products
to no more than two packages at a time and no more than three packages
within 30 days without a prescription.

Most liquid and gel-cap forms of these cold products will remain on store
shelves because no meth labs uncovered in North Carolina have reported the
use of gels or liquids for the key ingredients.

Attorney General Roy Cooper pushed the new law, modeled after one in
Oklahoma. Cooper says the measure has resulted in an 85 percent drop in
meth labs in Oklahoma.

Cooper's office reports that 124 children were removed from meth labs in
the state last year. So far this year, more than 80 children have been
removed from homes where meth was being cooked.