METH WASTE BECOMES ROADSIDE DANGER

DRUGS: Dumped meth waste poses a danger to people who pick up litter along
highways and in rural areas.

As warm days draw out hundreds of volunteers to pick up litter across
the Northland, some St. Louis County officials want to make certain a
new drug scourge doesn't inadvertently injure any good Samaritans.

St. Louis County Commissioner Keith Nelson of Virginia said an
increase in seemingly innocuous but hazardous waste, ditched by
operators of clandestine methamphetamine labs, could put regular
people at risk.

At Nelson's request, St. Louis County administrators plan to
distribute color reference guides that detail the drug's damaging
effects, recent proliferation and what to watch out for when picking
up trash along roadways and in wooded areas. The brochures come from a
national nonprofit publisher of educational materials.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation in Duluth began handing out
similar meth awareness pamphlets this spring, said Lynn Gill, who
coordinates the about 360 Adopt-A-Highway groups in the region.

Meth is a corrosive drug made from household and farm chemicals. The
residue is often found on discarded coffee filters, plastic bottles,
mason jars and propane tanks.

"If you ask the question, 'Does anyone know what to do if you find a
pile of coffee filters?' nine out of 10 times people are not going to
know that you shouldn't touch them," Nelson said.

So far, no one locally has come in contact with meth materials, and no
one has been injured, said Gary Eckenberg, deputy county
administrator.

However, he said it is only a matter of time because so few people
know what the dangers are or how to avoid them, Nelson said.

"The word has to get out to the people who do the highway cleanups,"
said Jim Fisher, president of the Local Government Alliance, a state
township lobbying group.

People in other Minnesota counties have found meth waste in highway
ditches, he said. Fisher, who is also on the Zim Township Board, said
his organization has been trying to educate the public about the meth
waste problem for about five years.

The waste can burn the soles off shoes and can damage lungs, and the
drug can be absorbed through the skin by simple contact.

"It is an animal unlike anything we've ever seen before," Fisher
said.

Traditionally, meth makers use rented or abandoned homes in rural
areas to produce the drug because it creates such noxious,
identifiable fumes. The labs produce a sickly sweet smell and intense
ammonia odors often compared to cat urine.

But as the meth problem has continued to escalate, more producers have
become mobile, Nelson said. They might make the drug in the woods and
dump the hazardous byproducts on their way into town, he said.

The spread of the powerful form of speed has approached epidemic
levels in St. Louis County, Nelson said. Just this spring, Iron Range
authorities found the remnants of six meth labs, he said.

The most recent was uncovered last week outside Virginia, Nelson
said.

Across the state, meth has proliferated. Last year, 425 labs were
found, most in rural counties outside the Twin Cities. Four years
earlier, only 18 were found.

The county will mail the publication to "every group we can think of,"
Nelson said. Soon, people also can get them with the garbage bags the
county provides to volunteers, Nelson said.