STEVE HUNTER - DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY

In the late 1980’s, when meth labs numbered a few dozen per year, not many of Washington’s police officers had the training to enter meth labs safely. The Washington State Patrol agreed to help with the law enforcement end of things if Ecology would take care of the waste for them.

At the time, we were able to assist by adding this program to the work of our existing spill response teams. However, while most of us had some general sense that the drug scene was going to get worse, I doubt many of us predicted the explosion that was to come in meth labs. Today, with labs breaking the 700 mark for 1999, Ecology still provides a clean up service to all cities and counties with the same number of staff.

We remove the “gross contaminants” from meth labs, including acids and solvents, along with propane tanks and other jury-rigged cylinders which contain ammonia or hydrogen chloride gas under pressure. Ecology must squeeze every bit of efficiency from its efforts that it safely can just to keep from falling too far behind. We do not clean the premises or remove common chemicals, like Coleman fuel, if they are safely stored in original containers. None the less, meth labs have come to dominate the workload of Ecology’s southwest region spill responders, and to be a high percentage workload in our other three regions.

To reach Steve, you can call him at (360) 407-6974, or through e-mail at Department of Ecology’s Web site.

See Special Report by The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12-17-99, Department of Ecology buried by an avalanche of lab and dumpsite cases