METH LABS NOT JUST AN URBAN PROBLEM

Rental Homes On City, County Open Space Used To Make Drug

Methamphetamine labs and cocaine dealing have been problems for area
landlords to contend with for years.

But twice in the past seven months it has been an issue for unlikely
property owners - the city and county open space departments.

Drug agents raided a pair of farmhouses on agricultural land owned as
open space and, in both busts, the drug activity led the isolated
country houses to be taken out of the rental market. For open space
officials, the problems were unusual. The Boulder and Boulder County
open space programs own seven and 15 rental homes respectively, and it
was the first time either agency had to question how illicit drug
manufacturers or dealers ended up as tenants.

"It certainly isn't just an urban problem, is it?" said Delani
Wheeler, spokeswoman for the city open space department.

In the spring, members of the Boulder County Drug Task Force were
tipped off by an informant about a possible methamphetamine lab at a
house just north of Boulder Reservoir.

On May 14, deputies stopped a truck driven by Tyson King, 26, who had
warrants out for his arrest and was thought to be making "meth," a
powerful form of speed. Officers reported finding meth-making
materials in the truck and got a search warrant for the 6559 55th St.
house where he had been seen, owned by the city open space program.

In the house, police said they found more chemicals and speed-related
material - sulfuric acid, muratic acid, hydrochloric acid, ammonia,
trisodium phosphate, ephedrine pills, flares - as well as an assault
rifle and evidence that recently active "cooks" of the illegal drug
had taken place in the house.

After the search, police in Larimer County arrested the official
tenant of the home, Ryan Lewis, 32, a man known to sheriff's deputies
at the jail for his frequent visits on drunken-driving and
drug-related arrests since 2000.

But Lewis' criminal record was unknown to city open space officials,
Wheeler said.

The city, for the past three years, has used a private property
management firm to screen tenants at the rental houses it owns. But
Lewis was never screened because he had been subleasing the farmhouse
for $300 a month since long before then.

For years, he had worked for a farmer who ran a hay operation and was
leasing the entire property from the city, including the farmhouse. In
January, city open space workers inspected and did maintenance work on
the house, and didn't notice anything unusual about the place.

Lewis was thought of as a hard-working farmhand until the drug task
force descended on the house, followed by the Drug Enforcement Agency
and hazardous materials clean-up crews, Wheeler said.

"All we knew was that the rent was being paid, the house was being
inspected and the crops were being harvested," Wheeler said. "From
everything we could see, this was a normal tenancy."

The farmhouse has been empty for the past seven months, contaminated
with the byproducts of methamphetamine manufacturing.

The state health department recommends extensive cleanup for the
potentially dangerous residues left behind by the drug's production.
Tearing out and replacing walls, floors, carpeting and countertops is
often the only way to guarantee that dangerous materials haven't lingered.

"These things are horrible. Cleaning asbestos is easier than cleaning
that stuff up," Bo D'Avanzo, a partner of Insure Fire and Water
Restoration that handles at least three meth lab cleanup projects in
the Denver metro area a month. "It's a problem out there, and it runs
into the thousands."

Boulder open space officials had the farmhand's former home examined
and were told that rehabilitating the house and monitoring afterward
to make sure it was safe would cost between $15,000 and $20,000.

The city decided to shutter the house after hearing the price tag
projections and because of the chance there may still be exposure risk
for future tenants.

Glenda Rowe, the leasing agent for Boulder County's open space
department, said it may be a small consolation that a cocaine bust at
one of its farmhouses on Oct. 31 didn't uncover a methamphetamine operation.

"Not that it's much better, but it's not as bad as it could've been,"
Rowe said.

The fallout from the Halloween night raid still came at a
cost.

In the weeks prior, several confidential informants had mentioned the
house outside Hygiene as a place where large quantities of cocaine as
well as prescription pain killers and fraudulent IDs were sold.

The woman who leased the house three months earlier had been vouched
for by her references and was chosen from 80 people who expressed
interest in renting the house, Rowe said.

When police raided the place, they found 9 ounces of cocaine, $6,600
in cash and some pills, police records show, but, for reasons that
aren't clear, no one was arrested as a result of the raid.

The house, nestled in a cottonwood-lined depression off Crane Hollow
Road south of the St. Vrain River, has sat empty ever since.

Shortly after the bust, everybody living there left, and the county
lost contact with them.

Before county officials realized they'd vanished, the home's
electricity had been shut off for non-payment and its pipes burst in a
cold snap, ruining the carpets and marring floors, Rowe said.

The county is repairing and remodeling the home - at a cost that
hasn't been determined - and plans to rent it to a Sheriff's Office
employee when the project is finished.