Drugs labs poisoning forests

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

AVA, Mo.  -----  Several national forests have become chemical dumping grounds for illegal drugmakers who have flocked to wooded areas to avoid stepped-up law enforcement in cities and towns, officials say.  The situation has become so dire in the sprawling Mark Twain National Forest in southern Missouri that state and federal agents here have formed what amount to strike teams that hunt down illegal drug labs in the wilderness and surrounding areas. The teams were formed in response to safety and environmental hazards posed by makers of methamphetamine, a cheap and very addictive stimulant that has hit communities from California through the Midwest in the past decade.  As police have cracked down on urban drug labs, temporary labs have begun popping up in hard-to-find rural locations. With the labs comes chemical waste that is dumped carelessly.

Among the refuse: hazardous material such as propane tanks, red phosphorous, hydrochloric acid, antifreeze, battery acid and toxic cleaning fluids.

The 1.5 million acres of the Mark Twain forest has been besieged like no other public land.  Across the USA last year, authorities seized a record 452 mobile methamphetamine labs or dumpsites on national forest lands, up from 80 in 1997. More than 70% of the drugs seized were being produced within the Mark Twain forest, officials say.

"This thing exploded on us," says Michael Gaston, a former Border Patrol agent who joined the U.S. Forest Service here last year. "We're way behind the curve" in cracking down on rural drug labs.  The problem led the Drug Enforcement Administration to set aside $2 million beginning this year to help Missouri and federal law enforcement officials deal with the toxic mess left here by illegal drugmakers. Nationwide, the Forest Service is seeking $10 million more from the Department of Agriculture to help pay for more drug agents and equipment, specifically helicopters, to find drug labs and forest-based marijuana fields. Agents have found drug labs in mobile homes, trailers and cabins abandoned throughout the national forest system. Most were set up to make methamphetamine, which had been used during World War II to fight fatigue. It is produced by breaking down ephedrine, a common cold medication ingredient, using anhydrous ammonia, ether, sulfuric acid and other toxics. It can be made into various forms, including powder

and chunks to be smoked.

Missouri Highway Patrol Sgt. Mike Stuart, head of a special investigative unit aimed at drug labs in the forest, says drugmakers typically set up shop near rivers and streams, where they can dump the waste and wash away fingerprints. Officials have not evaluated the scope of the environmental damage, but they say waterways are especially at risk. Kim Thorsen, the Forest Service's deputy director of law enforcement, says the agency is working with federal environmental engineers to address the threat to watersheds and public lands, including campgrounds and hiking trails.  In a letter Nov. 27 to then-Agriculture secretary Dan Glickman, former White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey said waste from methamphetamine labs "poses a significant risk to private citizens and law enforcement personnel" in Missouri's forest and others.  The environmental threat posed by the drug labs has made driving them from forests a priority for authorities. But the vastness and density of the forests, which make them so attractive to drug producers, complicate the task. "For every one (lab) we find, there are probably dozens more operating out there right now," says Stuart, motioning toward heavily wooded hills outside the agents' undercover command center.

Stuart says the forests are attractive to drugmakers because they guarantee isolation, and law enforcement has little presence. In Missouri, for example, Gaston and 10 other officers are spread across the entire forest. Covering the distance by car takes seven to eight hours. There also is an added attraction for drugmakers seeking cover in the Missouri woods: easy access via the interstate highways that crisscross the state's scattered forestlands and converge in St. Louis.

California officials also have seen a growing number of drug labs since the early 1990s. As in Missouri, producers in California are retreating to national forests for cover from law enforcement. Officials say California's labs pose a similar public safety and environmental threat.

In the Mark Twain forest, methamphetamine makers are regarded scornfully by authorities as "Beavis and Butt-head" operators, a reference to the simpleton teenage characters in a television cartoon. Lab operators usually are methamphetamine users who enlist a small circle of family members or friends in an enterprise that can net about $2,000 for each ounce they manufacture. In the hand-to-mouth economy of southwest Missouri, making the drug has become an attractive business for some.

Howell County is home to 36,500 people and about 49,000 acres of national forest, prime location for methamphetamine labs. Though most of the nation saw crime drop during the past eight years, that trend generally bypassed Howell County, where crime rates were stable. Most nights, all 54 beds in the county jail are full, and methamphetamine is almost always the reason. "I've seen (methamphetamine) come; I've seen it swallow us up," says Sheriff Bill Shephard , chief law enforcement officer in Howell. "Now, it's

time to do something about it."