METH AMONG US

"I'm Afraid Somebody's Going to End Up Dead Out There." -- Burnett
Dairy Co-op Manager Mark Knoepke on the recent rash of anhydrous
ammonia thefts at the Alpha business.

ALPHA--Under cover of night, thieves cloaked in dark clothes manage to
sneak their way to the rear of the Burnett Dairy in Alpha. They're not
after money, not after possessions and by sunrise, what they take is
worth only pennies to the Dairy.

What is it, then, that has driven dozens of potential suspects to
attempt just such a felony in recent months?

The answer is simply one word that's quickly becoming commonplace
among citizens of northwest Wisconsin and creating an underworld drug
scene in Burnett and Polk Counties local police departments may not be
capable of handling alone: meth.

Short for methamphetamines, or crank as it might be called on the
streets, meth has taken rural America by storm in the past decade and
rapidly become many users drug of choice thanks to its relative ease
to produce, sell and buy.

In January, Wisconsin Drug Enforcement Agents released statistics
naming the Burnett-Polk area the largest meth producer in the entire
state, including areas with allegedly much larger concentrations of
drug users such as Milwaukee and Madison.

Sound impossible? This cozy little corner of the state blooming with
more meth labs than the rest of Wisconsin combined? Not at all,
Burnett County Sheriff's Department Investigator Tracy Finch said.

"The latest figures I saw ranked Polk second and Burnett third in the
state (for meth-producing counties)," Finch said. "Meth has become
huge, what marijuana was in the 70s. And because of our closeness to
the border with Minnesota and our rural area, it's very easy to find
here."

Not only does the "backwoods" environment of Burnett County make it a
target for those seeking meth, it also creates a relatively
stress-free area for producers to set up shop. An understaffed
sheriff's department, without a specialized drug task force, has
uncovered several large meth labs within the past several years and
placed great emphasis on defusing the potential meth time bomb.

But with the speed producers can make their product -- it takes only
20 minutes to make a batch of ready-to-sell meth -- and the small size
of the labs -- they can fit in shoe boxes and be easily hidden in car
trunks -- law enforcement agents know they're facing an uphill battle.

That and nearly everything a meth maker needs to create a high-yield,
potentially deadly product can be purchased right from the local
hardware or drug store.

"They can buy whatever they need right here, they've got the rural
area to make it where there's not enough cops around, and they can
very easily set up, move or take the whole lab down whenever they
want," Siren Police Chief and newly elected Burnett County Sheriff
Dean Roland said. "If somebody wants to make meth, this area is perfect."

Throw in the Burnett Dairy and it gets even better.

Although a variety of chemicals and methods can be used to make meth,
anhydrous ammonia actually turns a two or three-day process into a 20
minute one, Roland said. And as thieves throughout the midwest have
quickly discovered, housed behind the dairy in numerous large tanks is
an anhydrous ammonia goldmine.

"We've been hit 12 times since August," Burnett Dairy Co-op Manager
Mark Knoepke told The Sentinel in late October. Since then, additional
thefts have occurred despite increased preventative measures, further
frustrating Knoepke and police.

"Just lately, it's gotten really bad," Knoepke said, "and I'm to the
point where we're going to have to try something on our own. We may
have to take this into our own hands."

Not that law enforcement efforts aren't getting results, just not as
fast as thieves are making attempts.

State police agents from the Wisconsin Drug Task Force and Division of
Narcotics Enforcement have set up period stings near the anhydrous
tanks and although details can't be released due to their sensitivity
at this point, the Burnett County Sheriff's Department has made
arrests concerning ammonia thefts.

Undercover and investigative work will certainly continue and
according to Knoepke, Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman has begun
putting much larger cash bonds on people arrested for anhydrous theft
than in past years. The Dairy itself is also trying to make such
thefts more difficult.

"We're in the process of having locks put on each tank and we put a
big spotlight back there," he said. "It looks like a mall parking lot,
but it doesn't seem to keep them (thieves) out. I guess if they want
to get back there, they're going to find a way."

Each anhydrous tank is on a set of wheels and could be towed entirely
away by another vehicle. To prevent just that, Knoepke and the Dairy
have surrounded the group of tanks with other larger equipment.

But each tank is also fitted with a hose that can simply be pulled
down and used to fill up whatever container suspects bring along.

"One week in early August there were 11 hoses down one morning. I
thought, my god, there must be an army out there," said Knoepke, who's
not as concerned with what's being taken as with what could happen
when dealing with an extremely dangerous chemical.

"What's been taken over the last three or four years doesn't amount to
much," he said about the volume of ammonia. "But this stuff is like 40
degrees below zero. This is ammonia and if you so much as take a whiff
of it, it can put you down. It takes your breath away immediately, it
burns the grass off around the tanks where they're doing this ... it
can burn your lungs right out.

"I'm afraid somebody's going to end up dead out there."

Finch readily acknowledges, it's clearly more than one group stealing
from the Dairy and even expensive preventative measures are no
guarantee to stop the escalating incidents.

"A lot of these (suspects and persons already arrested) are from
Minnesota," Finch said, noting the Alpha Dairy has essentially become
a glowing beacon for meth producers from hundreds of miles away.
"We've found maps to the Dairy on people from as far away as central
Minnesota.

"There are very expensive valve locks that could put on the tanks, but
the Dairy isn't losing much money on what's being taken. Or you could
fence in the whole area, but that would cost money. Plus they can
climb a fence."

Anhydrous ammonia is legally used to fertilize crop fields and in some
areas of the state, thieves seek out tanks left in the fields
overnight by unsuspecting farmers. As Finch pointed out, though, even
for farmers it's a felony to transport the product in an unapproved
tank, to transport it in a vehicle or to possess it for
non-agricultural purposes.

By stealing anhydrous ammonia, a persons is automatically guilty of
three felony charges, she said.

Yet with all the Dairy's trouble and as dangerous as anhydrous ammonia
is, what happens when it's used to create a drug making its way
steadily across the county, into area schools and into more homes than
anyone might consider?

How dangerous is meth?

(See Part II in next week's Sentinel to learn more about this drug,
its production and what it does to the human body.)