Welcome To Meth Country - clandestine methamphetamine labs

Sierra, Jan, 2001 by Marilyn Berlin Snell

Iodine is mostly used by ranchers, in miniscule amounts, to treat thrush on horse hooves. As a rule, most meth cooks don't have horses. Instead, they use gallons of the chemical--which in large amounts is toxic to the gastrointestinal system and the thyroid gland, not to mention the environment--in the initial stages of the pseudoephedrine/ephedrine cooking process.

Oil refineries use hidriotic acid to test crude oil for sulfur content. One or two gallons can last a refinery an entire year. So, what does a guy living out in the middle of nowhere need with 50 gallons of the stuff? As the principal chemical in the pseudoephedrine reduction process, hidriotic acid breaks down the pseudoephedrine molecules to create meth.

Red phosphorus can be found at the end of every matchstick in your house, and also in road flares. Needless to say, it's highly flammable. The Apache County lab had 550 pounds of red phosphorus on site--about 549.99 pounds more than anyone in their right mind would need to light their backyard barbecue.

In the pseudoephedrine reduction process, if red phosphorus and iodine are heated and improperly vented by the amateur chemist, a lethal and odorless gas called phosphene is created. "If we don't know it's a lab when we go in," says Tafoya, "the immediate danger is that we don't have breathing apparatuses on and we inhale toxic gases that can kill us or fry our lungs."

In 1999, Arizona found 473 labs. The year 2000 was on track to exceed that number. The majority were small-scale operations (called "Beavis-and-Butthead" labs by DEA agents) located in urban areas. Makeshift labs have been found in motel rooms, homes and apartments on quiet, cactus-lined streets in Phoenix, and even in car trunks. Jim Molesa, the DEA's public-affairs officer for Phoenix, says that the average small lab costs between $3,000 and $4,000 to clean up. "The small urban labs make a couple ounces," he says, just enough to feed the cook's addiction--with leftovers sold to buy over-the-counter chemicals for the next batch. "But there's still a horrible environmental component with these labs," Molesa adds. "They're almost like a mini-hazardous-waste site."

Special Agent William Etter works with the DEA in Northern California and deals with urban labs almost daily. According to Etter, these labs are an ever-increasing micro problem: In 1995, 52 percent of the lab seizures nationwide were in metropolitan areas. "With urban labs, there are levels of contamination that hit you where you live," says Etter. "When I think of the environment, it's not just about the birds, bees, and trees. How about the urban environment? Knowing what I know about meth, I'd never move into a house that had been a lab."

Scott Logan, who heads Envirosolve, the company contracted by the DEA to clean up meth labs in Arizona, agrees. "The small labs contain flammable solvents, chlorinated solvents, acid bases," says Logan. "We find just about every toxic food group." When it comes to the environmental costs of meth, urban blight and rural blight--micro labs and macro ones--blur into one Superfund-size problem.