JANITORS NOW ALERT TO METH LAB WASTE IN SCHOOL DUMPSTERS

Custodian Roland Cook used to find empty bleach bottles piled high in
the Dumpster outside Anne Bailey Elementary School in St. Albans.

He'd think to himself, "Someone's been doing some seriously cleaning."

More than likely, someone was cooking meth.

Cook said he'd frequently discover all sorts of meth-making materials
- - Coleman fuel cans, cold tablet packets and bottles of brake fluid
and toilet bowl cleaner - after hauling the day's trash out to the
school Dumpster.

At the time, Cook didn't think much of these findings. He had no
idea what meth was.

But after a crash course on meth labs from the Kanawha County
Sheriff's Department, Cook connected the dots.

"During staff development meetings, we'd chat and find other
custodians making the same discoveries," said Cook, evening-shift
custodian at Anne Bailey since 1999. "At first, we were agitated
merely because the neighbors were rudely taking away our Dumpster space.

"But when police told us the real problem, we were stunned."

Local authorities have made busting methamphetamine operations a
priority. Besides the illegality of the drug, the preparation process
frequently results in fires and the byproducts are considered toxic.

Methamphetamine producers have to find places to dispose of their
materials - and Dumpsters in public places, even schools, often do the trick.

Cook said he and other custodians took courses on meth labs as part
of staff development initiatives about a year ago.

He had seen household cleaners and products pop up in the school
Dumpster over a few years.

Fortunately for Cook and other custodians, they're seeing less of it nowadays.

An overall crackdown on meth from the sheriff's department and the
presence of a deputy now living behind the school can be attributed
to this decline.

Cook believes meth makers used the Anne Bailey Dumpster because of
its location, in a shady area off to the side of the school. He also
said it's not uncommon for the general public to toss their garbage
into the receptacle.

One night, Cook came across two five-gallon buckets of sludge -
leftover chemicals and byproducts of methamphetamine.

For each pound of meth produced, there are five or six pounds of
leftover byproduct that is toxic.

Normally, meth cooks will dispose of this byproduct by dumping it
into drains, along the road or in their backyards, said Kanawha
County Sheriff Mike Rutherford.

Once in a while, meth-making materials wind up in Dumpsters near
local schools, he said.

Rutherford recalled another time when a Dumpster across Sissonville
Middle School contained meth-making products.

"It has to go somewhere," the sheriff said. "A lot of the time,
they're pour it into their backyard. If they leave and a new family
comes in on the property, they could have their kids rolling around
in it getting chemical burns. Those chemicals can stay in the ground
for quite some time."

For two years, retired Capt. Dave Ross has offered the training
courses on detecting meth and the drug's effects for anyone interested.

Rutherford said the courses have been made available to social
organizations, rotaries, schools, businesses, utility companies and
state agencies like the Division of Highways and Department of Health
and Human Resources.

"Several people have been around this stuff and had no clue what it
was before," he said. "Educating people has led us to bust even more
meth labs."

Police have also regularly found soda bottles containing yellowish
fluids that people have tossed out.

The substance is not Mountain Dew.

"These people will urinate into a bottle or bucket after doing meth,"
Rutherford explained. "They'll take the fluid and boil the water out
of it. Because a large portion of meth passes into the body, they'll
take that urine and put it over a heat source. The residue that's
left, they'll use it."

Rutherford introduced the countywide meth hotline in March 2005. That
year, the county made 168 percent more meth-related arrests than the
previous year.

Arrests have dropped since. Instead of seeing three or four meth
busts a day, police might get that many in a week, Rutherford said.

"They're still there, obviously, but we're thankful we're not finding
as many," he said.

Rutherford urges anyone who comes in contact with a meth lab or dump
to call police. The chemicals give off a metallic smell that
sometimes resembles cat urine, he said.