FORMER METH LABS CAN LEAVE BEHIND HOUSE OF HORRORS

State Lacks Rules For Cleanup, Notice

Thousands of homes in metro Denver bristle with poisonous chemicals, slowly
sickening the unsuspecting occupants who don't know they're living in a
former methamphetamine lab.

Colorado has no standards for long-term exposure to the chemicals and
little power to force landlords to clean up the volatile sites.

Last year, Colorado drug task forces broke up more than 500 meth labs,
seizing the cold capsules, camping fuel, phosphorous, glassware burning on
kitchen stoves and basement hot plates.

Left behind were the volatile compounds and off-gases that seep into
carpets, mattresses, drapes and, sometimes, drywall.

"Twenty years from now, the true picture will be painted when my co-workers
and I are peeing blood for the rest of our lives," said Sgt. Jim Gerhardt
of the North Metro Drug Task Force, which busted 72 meth labs last year.

Police estimate that for every lab they close down, they miss 10. "There
are 5,000 out there we haven't seized," Gerhardt said.

Most police don respirators and moon suits when they take down a meth lab.
Gerhardt worries even more about the next inhabitants of the trailer, motel
room or house. Colorado doesn't require the posting of notices of former
meth lab houses, nor does it require licensing or training of the companies
that try to clean up the mess.

"Landlords can get a fly-by-night company to do a minimal assessment for
$200 and declare it clean and safe," Gerhardt said. "Or a motel might paint
over things and let people back in. The paint makes it look nice but
doesn't remove anything that's contaminated."

The ingredients used to give someone a crystal methamphetamine high sound
like they belong in a garage, rather than a kitchen.

Lithium metal from Duracell or Energizer batteries

Methyl alcohol

Lighter fluid, camping fuel, lye, toluene, sulfuric acid, red phosphorus.

A crystal-meth high can last 24 hours and cost about one-tenth the price of
cocaine.

It is so addicting that many meth chefs bent on making money selling their
handiwork to others end up smoking their whole batches, police say. And
thousands of addicts in metro Denver cook the stuff on a stove top just for
their own use.

It's a dangerous recipe.

The goal is to remove oxgyen molecules from phedrine or pseudophedrine cold
tablets to turn them into methamphetamine.

A pilot light or a spark from an on-off switch can ignite and blow up a room.

The meth chefs also need a source of phosphorous that, with iodine,
produces hydriotic acid, a poisonous gas.

It also generates phosphene, an odorless, colorless poisonous gas.

As the mixture cooks, acids and iodine get everywhere, leaving a yellow
film on countertops, walls, ceilings.

All the body's organs that act as filters can be harmed by carcinogens and
neurotoxins in the poisonous ingredients or the off-gases they produce.

The acids can severely damage lungs.

"Vapors from iodine crystals can be toxic, even lethal," said Henderson, a
chemical engineer. "Hydrophosphorous acid produces phosphine that can kill
you."

Last year, an Arizona forensics officer exposed to phosphine for 20 minutes
suffered dizziness, cough, headache, diarrhea and lung damage, according to
the medical journal Clinical Toxicology.

For every pound of crystal meth, 5 or 6 pounds of hazardous wastes are also
created. Typically, the stuff is buried in the back yard, where it can
leach into groundwater, tossed down the storm sewer where it can dump into
a creek and kill wildlife or thrown into the trash.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is starting to
look at meth lab ingredients to come up with limits on long-term exposure,
said Fred Dowsett, compliance coordinator with the Hazardous Materials
division. "But we're not very far along. There is not a lot of information
on the long-term effects."

The state leaves most of the safety issues to local governments' fire and
building codes, but those, too, haven't kept up with the meth lab surge.

Until Colorado mandates a safe level of toxins -- such as Oregon's
half-microgram per square foot -- landlords likely will find it's cheaper
to remove all carpets, furniture and drywall than to pay for testing and
sampling mandated by local fire districts, Dowsett said.

North Metro Drug Task Force tests officers shortly after they've raided a
meth lab. It offers a 40-hour training course and works only with cleanup
companies that have completed the course.

"There are what appear to be very large loopholes in this whole meth lab
scenario," said Ron West, president of Environmental Property
Investigators, a company that put its employees through North Metro's training.

"Drug lab busts aren't put into a database, so in Colorado I can't tell you
specifically which properties have been impacted by a drug lab. They're
just spreading this stuff all over the place and no one knows where it's
going." West said that at a minimum "carpets, furniture, drapes and
probably drywall" should be removed along with the paraphernalia of a drug
lab bust.

Nevada, Oregon and Washington have created databases listing properties
that were sites of drug busts. They also have stringent testing, cleanup
and post-testing regulations.

Oregon makes the homeowner responsible for decontamination, cleanup and
testing, said Dewey Darold, environmental health specialist with Oregon's
drug lab cleanup program.

"We certify the contractors and sponsor specialized training courses every
year." Contactors have to pass an exam to be certified to do an assessment
of the level of hazardous and toxic waste at a meth lab home.

North Metro gets county inspectors to post a notice that the building is
uninhabitable, then gets Excel Energy to remove the gas meters. That gets
the landlord's attention. The property owners often get a chemical company
to do a cleanup, but there is no mandate that prevents them from doing the
work themselves.

Gov. Bill Owens wants a law to make it easier to arrest someone who has all
the ingredients needed to make crystal meth. Currently, district attorneys
won't file cases unless there's evidence of the actual cooking process.

Next year, police hope to find a sponsor for a bill that would set
standards and make landlords responsible for cleanup costs. "We're
absolutely inundated and overwhelmed by these labs," Gerhardt said. "It's
all very, very nasty and hard to deal with. And Colorado doesn't have a
standard for getting places cleaned up and brought back to a livable
condition."

Said Henderson: "There's nothing that details the danger of breathing the
fumes month after month, year after year. In 20 years, we'll find out how
much is too much. Unfortunately, the police officers will be our canaries."