Meth Lab Cleanup No Easy Task
A multi-agency cleanup crew spent much of Tuesday at a home in a quiet Spokane Valley neighborhood where deputies had discovered a suspected methamphetamine lab.
Members of the Washington State Patrol’s special incident response team, sheriff’s deputies and Spokane police officers spent the day hauling chemicals out of the brick rancher at 13515 E. Fourth.
Besides the normal investigation that goes on at a crime scene, the cleanup crew, dressed head to toe in protective clothing, took samples of chemicals and then tested them to make sure they could be safely transported for disposal.
Deputies had gone to the house on Saturday afternoon after receiving a complaint of strong chemical odors coming from the basement of the home. After finding ingredients to make the illegal drug inside the house that day, deputies arrested Renea L. Heinz, 36, who lives at the home. She was charged with felony possession of methamphetamine.
Detectives said they have probable cause to arrest Heinz’s housemate, Donald E. Butler, on drug charges. He was not at the house on Saturday and had not been found as of Tuesday night. Butler, who is 32, is described as 5-foot-4 and 140 pounds with blond hair and blue eyes.
After the arrest of Heinz on Saturday, deputies secured the house and waited for the WSP team to arrive from Olympia and assist in cleaning up the suspected meth lab and decontaminating the house.
The WSP team is so busy working around the state that it sometimes takes several days before suspected drug labs can be cleaned up, said Sgt. George Wigen, who heads the investigative support unit for the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office is training its own deputies to be able to clean up labs without having to wait for the WSP team from Olympia, Wigen said.
Methamphetamine is made from common household items such as the red phosphorous tips on matches.
While it’s not unusual to find a book of matches in a home, deputies on Tuesday found 10,000 matchbooks in the basement of the home on Fourth Avenue, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Cpl. David Reagan.
Most of the chemicals are not dangerous by themselves. But when mixed together and cooked over a flame, the chemicals can explode or cause serious injury if inhaled, said Wigen.
“I had no idea there was so much involved in handling these types of dangers,” said neighbor Mary Klepinger as she looked at the scene of the clean-up. Klepinger said she and other neighbors were shocked to learn that there had been an alleged drug operation in their “friendly, peaceful little community.”
She had seen a lot of cars coming and going from the home, but had never noticed any problems there.
“There was never any trouble or any reason to think things were happening. We tend to mind our own business,” she said.
After the official decontamination crew finishes its job, a cleaning agency will thorougly clean the house before the health department will allow anyone to live there again, said Wigen.