MESQUITE FIELD CONCEALS METH LABS

North Texas Regional Drug Task Force investigators walk through a trash
pile left from meth cooks. Investigators called the find one of the largest
labs they've seen in years.

A North Texas Regional Drug Task Force investigator shows the remains of
filtered cold pills. Methamphetamine cooks filter out the pseudoephedrine
and leave the unwanted chemicals and trash behind.

Friday morning North Texas Regional Drug Task Force inspectors stumbled
across a pile of trash in a clearing of a mesquite field inside Wichita Falls.

They immediately knew what they had found, but not the volume.

The methamphetamine lab was the largest find in years for the task force.
At least seven piles of empty drug boxes and lithium batteries were in the
clearing, investigator John Spragins said. At least that many more were
seen while driving around in other areas of the field.

"This is just a perfect example of what the task force and other agencies
are up against," Spragins said. "This is what makes it difficult to fight
this problem."

Meth cooks have changed some of their methods to try to stay in front of
the task force.

A recent bust in Bowie was the first time the task force found cooks who
had made their own anhydrous ammonia.

"We used to catch people stealing any ammonia from farmers," Inspector
Bobby Dilbeck said. "Now they don't have to do that."

Methamphetamine cooks have long used empty fields in North Texas and
Southwest Oklahoma to avoid detection. Some continued to mix their
chemicals inside their houses in town. But the cooks are leaving the city
for the mesquite where the smell dissipates more easily.

"They've taken it out of the neighborhood because we were doing search
warrants because of the smell," Spragins said.

The task force has also had to deal with people who have started to use
electronic surveillance, lookouts with walkie-talkies and in some cases
night vision, both Spragins and Dilbeck said.

All it takes is kicking over a bucket to knock out the meth and run away,
Dilbeck said. Officers find a trash pile and nothing more.

Investigators wanted to use their find to show just what they're up
against. At one of the sites in the field Spragins estimated three to four
ounces had been made. At around $100 a gram that's at least $8,400 from one
small trash pile.

Investigators found six others in the clearing and saw 15-20 labs driving
through the field, Spragins said. That means there could have been more
than $150,000 of meth cooked in the field.

"In every vacant field within 30 miles (of Wichita) you can walk out and
find something like this," Dibleck said. "I guarantee it."