In the first half of the decade, the number of methamphetamine labs and dump sites handled by the state Department of Ecology never topped 45 a year. As October ended, the tally had escalated to 619 so far this year.

"We're going under," Steve Hunter, DOE's supervisor of spill operations, says in one of many understatements about meth's spread into Washington state.

Meth cooks are rarely environmentally conscious. They create unholy messes around them, toxic dumps that kids crawl around in, police officers wade through and that by law, Hunter's staff has to dispose of.

Making one pound of meth produces five pounds of waste. While a great deal of the remains can be handled as household hazardous waste, Hunter explains, the heavy metals and flammable chemicals like mercury and phosphorus must be transported to hazardous waste facilities.

Hunter used to spend $300,000 to $400,000 a biennium on private cleanup contractors; he was used to dealing with oil spills from wrecks of trains and ships. Now, although he has no more staff than he did in 1994, DOE workers are doing the cleanup themselves to control costs.

Another of Hunter's coping mechanisms is to seek leeway from the police and county sheriff's departments that ask DOE teams to package, transport and dispose of the meth wastes. Hunter's teams have taken to not responding at night or on weekends and to requesting that small labs be bundled together for pickup by DOE on a "milk run."

The near-doubling of labs in just one year has ended Hunter's budget-stretching tricks. He has asked Gov. Gary Locke for $749,000 extra in 2000, to cover four more workers and buy four additional trucks.

As users' penchant to supply themselves and their friends with meth proliferates, dangers rise exponentially for everyone. In August DOE put out an alert to raise public consciousness about the informal dump sites -- campgrounds, rest areas and open public lands.

In Grays Harbor County, inmate work crews discovered two discarded labs while they were cleaning ditches along the road.

"In the past, we were more concerned about landlords and motel personnel being exposed to abandoned drug labs in rental homes and motel rooms," Hunter said. "As the labs have gotten more mobile, they're getting closer to everyday people doing everyday things.

In the early days of meth-making, the operations were confined to isolated areas because of the cat-urine smell given off in the manufacturing process. The latest method is so streamlined that a cook can set up shop in a car.

Signs of a drug lab or dump site include ammonia odors, empty ether spray cans, plastic tubing and broken lab equipment, respirators and dust masks, scales, propane tanks, empty cold medicine bottles and coffee filters stained red (from red phosphorus).

Suspected drug labs and dump sites should be reported to the nearest fire, police or sheriff's department, to 911 or to DOE at 800-258-5990.