PORTABLE METH LABS BUSTED

Fifty or so working fixed and portable laboratories for making crystal
methamphetamine have been put out of operation in Coffee County so far this
year and components from another 35 to 40 have been found discarded,
usually along roadside or in wooded areas.

Now byproducts of a meth cook-off have been found in a stream feeding
Coffee County's primary water supply.

Something in Wolf Creek at the Shedd Road bridge caught Coffee County
Sheriff's Department chief investigator Doug Richardson's eye Friday
morning and he stopped to take a closer look.

He found what turned out to be byproducts, chemicals and equipment from six
meth labs, two of them large cooks and four about average size, filling
seven large plastic bags.

The usual materials found in the residue included acetone, brake cleaner,
Coleman fuel, liquid iodine and muratic acid and byproducts of cook-offs
that are caustic, flammable and toxic, 14th Judicial District Drug Task
Force agent Chad Partin noted.

Hazardous materials handlers under contract to the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) at Chattanooga were called to the scene.

Water from the creek east of Manchester runs into the Little Duck River and
eventually winds up in Normandy Reservoir where the Duck River Utility
Commission (DRUC) has a water treatment plant that supplies Manchester and
Tullahoma and their customers.

"It would break down into individual components and be so diluted that it
would pose no problem," DRUC general manager Randall Braker said.

"Our carbon activated filters would catch any contaminants anyway but who
wants pollutants like that fouling our raw water supply in the first place."

People swimming or fishing or animals drinking in the immediate vicinity of
the meth trash risked contamination, he said.

"If contamination of the water supply concerns people, how much more
concerned should they be about where the end product going into their
bodies came from?" Partin said.

"We can expect to see about a 50 percent increase in meth lab activity in
2002 and there was more than enough to begin with."

A cluster of counties in southern Middle Tennessee already has one of the
highest per capita concentrations of meth labs in the nation, one reason
Congressman Zach Wamp has requested $1 million in additional funding
funding for the war on drugs in the Cumberland Plauteau counties.

"Anyone who sees anything resembling meth trash should avoid handling it
and notify the Coffee County Sheriff's Department or the local police
departments right away," Partin said.

All four agencies, the drug task force and sheriff's and police
departments, now have officers trained in inventorying and handling
hazardous materials.

Anyone linked to illegal disposal of meth lab materials will be prosecuted.