DANGER OF METH LABS LINGERS

Bill Aims To Clean Up Homes, But It May Not Be Ultimate Solution

Matt and Sherry Norgard didn't have a clue what they were walking into.

The couple and their only child, Colette, were on a roll. They had sold
their first house and were building a second. They moved into an apartment
for six months while the construction was completed.

That's when they all started getting sick.

After investigation, Sherry Norgard discovered that the apartment in
Thornton had been used as a methamphetamine lab. Tests showed that the drug
was present in high levels around the return air grill near the patio door.

But by the time the testing had been done, Colette, then 2, had pneumonia
three times in that many months and multiple ear infections. Matt Norgard
had a sore throat that two courses of antibiotics couldn't cure. Sherry
Norgard felt generally tired.

"You do your best as a parent to protect your child and then, unknowingly,
you put them in a dangerous situation," Matt Norgard said.

Sherry Norgard shares her husband's concerns. After she was hospitalized
twice, Colette's situation was diagnosed by a doctor at Children's Hospital
with the help of another doctor at the Kempe Center, who has started the
first national study on the long-term effects on children exposed to meth
labs.

"Every time Colette gets a cold, I wonder if she's going to have to be
hospitalized with pneumonia again," Sherry Norgard said. "We try to be
positive, but I catch myself worrying about what's going to happen to her
years from now."

The Norgards, who have filed a lawsuit against the apartment owners for
failing to tell them about past criminal activity in the apartment and
failing to clean it properly, are scheduled to be at the state Capitol
today.

House lawmakers will take up a plan to give counties and cities the power to
clean - or order the cleaning of - former meth labs. The proposal also
directs the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to publish
cleanup standards.

At issue is how to give local governments the power to deal with what are
basically toxic waste dumps after a meth lab has been shut down. While the
process of making meth uses common products such as camping-stove fuel and
lye, the process of boiling and extracting the highly addictive drug creates
deadly gases and hazardous chemical compounds that soak into walls and
floors and appliances.

Everyone involved in writing the bill believes that it is a solid first step
in getting a handle on removing the deadly wastes. But no one believes that
the bill is the ultimate solution.

The Problem

Colorado law enforcement officials shut down 468 meth labs in 2002. For
every one they shut down, 10 kept running, according to national law
enforcement estimates. So the likelihood that any rental property, hotel
room or resold home might have been a meth lab increases each year.

Police admit that the problem of meth labs got out of control before they
developed strategies to deal with it. But even simple steps, such as
training police officers and human services workers what to look for as they
enter a house, can make a difference.

For example, a pile of matchbooks on a table can be a dead giveaway.
Phosphorus is used in meth production, so meth "cooks" spend long hours
scraping the ends of matches.

"It was like being at the bottom of a mountain and looking up at an
avalanche," said Sgt. Jim Gerhardt, spokesman for the High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area unit. "We had to develop strategies."

The meth war also forced law enforcement officials to look at their work
differently. Instead of being the people who catch the bad guys, they were
now being asked to consider health risks to officers, emergency crews and
the public.

"If there's anything good about meth labs, it's that they're making
government agencies come together and talk for the first time," Gerhardt
said.

What they are discovering is that the authors of Colorado drug laws did not
contemplate a time when individuals would manufacture drugs in homes and
hotel rooms and car trunks through an extremely volatile chemical process.
While current drug laws deal with offenders, none of them speaks to the
toxic situation they leave behind.

The Solution

Tom Meyers is looking for innovation. As a building code inspector in
Broomfield, he is one of the first in the state to find ways to use city and
county building codes to begin to enforce cleanup standards.

A recent drug bust in his city provides a good example of how the process
works. The bust, at 3196 Shannon Drive in Broomfield's upscale Broadlands
neighborhood, put Meyers into action.

He was called to the location as soon as police finished cataloging
evidence. He immediately started finding building code violations based on
what police told him they saw inside the house. Meyers didn't go in himself
because it was considered too dangerous without a breathing apparatus to
filter the air.

Once Meyers rules a building substandard, he posts a notice to vacate. Once
the owner is notified, he must present Meyers with a cleanup plan. Meyers
reserves veto authority over the company used for the cleanup.

The chemical volatility and potential toxicity of a meth lab make cleanup
expensive.

Equinox, a Thornton company widely considered on the cutting edge of
meth-lab cleanup, generally charges $3,000 to $8,000 per floor, according to
owner Jerry Spanhower. The bill for a longtime lab can run as high as
$40,000 if all drywall and flooring has to be replaced.

The company takes a series of samples and sends them to labs for testing
before drawing up a plan for cleaning. Once the cleaning is complete,
additional tests are run. But that's the company's standard, not a public
health requirement.

There also isn't any requirement for notifying incoming occupants of a past
meth-lab bust. In Adams County, where the North Metro Task Force is driving
changes in the way drug laws are enforced, all meth-lab busts are posted on
the Internet.

Equinox maintains a Front Range database of meth-lab busts that staffers
cobble together. For $35, anyone can call in and check on a property to find
out its past.

The Next Step

Colorado uses the Washington state standard as a guideline for how much meth
contamination is too much. That standard says that .5 microgram per cubic
foot is the limit.

But all acknowledge that the science to confirm these limits still needs to
be done.

That's why National Jewish Medical and Research Center received a grant to
do the first national study on contamination levels in meth labs. Industrial
hygienists there already have joined police on meth busts to study the
health risks at all stages, from production to cleanup.

"None of the standards we have set for exposures in the workplace apply to
the situations in makeshift meth labs," said John Martyny, who is running
the study for National Jewish. "Nobody has gone in to see how bad the
contamination is that we're sending our emergency personnel into."

Without these standards, no one knows what sorts of health problems to look
for, or what tests to run on those exposed. If there are no standards for
emergency workers, there are even fewer for children who are removed from
meth labs when the guardians are arrested.

"Those exposures aren't eight hours - they're 24 hours over multiple days,"
Martyny said.

That's where Dr. Kathryn Wells on the Kempe Child Protection Team comes in.
She's conducting the first national study of the long-term health effects on
the children removed from the labs.

"Everybody is finally saying that this is such an important issue we've got
to act," Wells said. "It's true we don't have standards set in stone, but in
the interim, we need to do the best we can to protect the children and
protect the community."

Sidebar:

Cleaning Up Meth Labs

Legislation: House lawmakers will take up a bill to give cities and counties
the power to clean - or order the cleaning of - former meth labs. The plan
also directs the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to
publish cleanup standards.

Check your property: Equinox Environmental Services maintains a data- base
of meth lab busts. To check into a property's past for $35, call (303)
308-3640.