You may or may not know that I recently bought a home where the seller did not disclose that there had been a meth lab bust on the property.
The more I learn about this hazmat issue from hell, the more I realize that there needs to be a ton of public education about the contaminats that were never tested for that may remain in the soil.
The highly toxic chemical waste from cooking meth may be a hazard to present/future residents and the water table.
The 800 meth lab busts from the mid 1980's to present in my county alone (Butte County, CA) were for the most part, not red-tagged, nor tested, nor "professionally" cleaned up. So much for public/environmental health protecting us. I also have learned that professional testing/cleaning may totally miss any hot spots so the public is given false reassurance that a property is okay if "professionally" cleaned. Finding the hot spot from contamination is sort of like finding the needle in a hay stack.
I am awaiting a return call today from someone from the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws (NAMSDL) to d
http://www.natlalliance.org/methconf.aspHere is a fantastic article from South Carolina's newspaper, the authors sent me a snail mail hard copy-and the story is front page, above the fold, and laid out in a clear easy to read format, with bullet points along the right hand column. The web version does not do it justice.
http://www.thestate.com/news/story/182719.htmlPosted on Tue, Sep. 25, 2007
SAVAGE METH | Day 3: Hidden time bombs
Poisons lurk as state does little to notify public, make toxic sites clean
By JOHN MONK and ADAM BEAM - jmonk@thestate.com abeam@thestate.com
ABOUT THE SERIES
A three-part series on South Carolina’s war on meth
Day 1: Meet the man who unleashed meth on the Midlands. Online at thestate.com
Day 2: South Carolina does not monitor long-term health of children exposed to chemicals at meth labs.
Day 3: Is there a former meth lab in your neighborhood? Is it safe? Is there any way to know?
here are some of the bulleted points, at least my county narcotics task force has a list of meth lab busts and those busted from 2006 forward are red-tagged and a lien filed against the property owner so it comes up in a title search, they just are doing a very shitty job of notifying the public that they never cleaned up the 800 busts that were done prior to 2006-they mostly only removed chemicals and containers. CA is working on standards for what constitutes "clean":
from the article:
Unlike many other states, where environmental departments take a much more active role, DHEC:
• Doesn’t know where all the sites are; there is no formal communication about meth sites between DHEC and local sheriffs and police, who do know where the sites are
• Doesn’t warn the public even when it does know of a site
• Doesn’t clean up meth lab sites itself, nor does it hire specialists to clean up sites
• Does no site inspection after a site has been cleaned up by others; the state has no standard for what constitutes a “clean” site.