DRUG LABS POISONING FORESTS

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 in national forests, 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 additional 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.''