CASH WOES VEX METH-LAB CLEANUP

Rural Agencies Could Soon Be Short Of Funds

In March the Drug Enforcement Agency ran out of money designed to
assist small police agencies that stumble across methamphetamine labs
but can't afford cleanup costs.

Then in May the Department of Justice, in response to public outcry,
received $5 million in emergency cleanup funding local agencies can
access on a first-come, first-served basis.

While the windfall has solved the problem for the moment, DEA
resident-agent-in-charge Don Mendrala said he can't predict how long
the cash will last.

"When the money is gone the problem resurfaces," he
said.

Most federal budget analysts expect the emergency money will be gone
before year's end, a press release from U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson,
R-Ark., stated.

Typical cleanup costs for a Utah meth lab range from $1,000 to
$5,000, Mendrala said. So-called "super labs," so far found only in
California, can carry disposal price tags reaching six figures.

Mendrala said an empty DEA bank account presents a potentially
dangerous situation for rural police agencies that don't budget for
meth lab disposal.

"The danger is having a lab discovered completely inadvertently," he
said. "If a local police officer finds a lab during a car stop or a
fire or a domestic dispute, these types of discoveries would fall
outside of our legal ability to pay for their cleanup."

Most times Utah's rural police work with special countywide meth task
forces, which include DEA agents. DEA involvement ensures the federal
agency will pay for the bust's cleanup. Such cases are assigned a DEA
case number and automatically receive funding from the Department of
Justice, Mendrala said.

But in cases where rural agencies stumble across labs without DEA
involvement, federal money is not guaranteed, Mendrala said.

Still, since the agency has the know-how and manpower needed to scour
toxic labs, they receive special cleanup funds slated for busts
lacking a DEA case number. It was these dollars that expired in March
and could disappear again when the emergency funding runs out,
Mendrala said.

For rural agencies the result could be dangerous.

"We just can't afford to fund or budget for cleaning up meth labs,"
Emery County Sheriff Lamar Guymon said. "For us it would be a waste of
money. We leave it to the DEA people who specialize in that stuff."

In Washington County, with a much larger population than rural Emery,
Sheriff Kirk Smith is similarly unable to budget for the high price of
destroying potentially lethal and explosive chemicals used to
manufacture meth.

"Normally your budgets are not sufficient to cover the cost of
cleaning these labs," Smith said. "We just don't have the monies that
some of the Wasatch Front agencies have, so the DEA help is really
important to us."

In an effort to prevent future budget shortfalls, Hutchinson has
introduced a bill that would earmark $10 million for rural agencies
needing DEA assistance for fiscal year 2000. The bill would allocate
$20 million for rural cleanup efforts in 2001. Hutchinson's bill is
under review by the House Subcommittee on Crime.