For 14 years, Dean May, who co-owns Calgary-based Macken Hazmat Solutions, has been cleaning up the mess left by drug labs in western Canada after police are on the scene.
As clandestine drug labs grow larger and more complex, the toxic mess they leave behind and the equipment needed to clean them up create costly and dangerous situations for both people and the environment.
In BC, the RCMP says it has spent millions over the past five years disposing of chemicals found in labs, but the rest of the hefty cleanup bill is often left to property owners who call in private companies like Maze.
The Real Estate Association of BC says province-wide regulations are needed on how to improve properties to make them livable.
Police in British Columbia say they have busted the largest, most sophisticated drug superlab in Canadian history, seizing 89 guns and hundreds of kilograms of drugs. Andrew Chang breaks down information from RCMP and drug production experts about what makes this lab so sophisticated and how far this criminal network can reach.
May said that synthetic drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, are more toxic than industrial marijuana-growing operations and are quicker to set up, meaning it's easier to turn rented properties into labs without property owners knowing.
“One can turn a house into a lab in a matter of days, whereas in grow-up days, it took a lot of time to set up and wire up a grow-up,” he said.
RCMP Staff Sgt. Derek Westwick runs BC's Clandestine Lab Enforcement and Response Team, which investigates synthetic drug labs.
He grew up in the area of Langley, BC, where a single-family home was turned into a large ecstasy laboratory 10 years ago.
He remembers that in that case “Cook” was pouring chemicals through a pipe into the yard of a large house, which allowed the chemicals to be dumped into a ditch.
The province stepped in when then-environment minister Mary Pollock declared the location a “high-risk contaminated site” a year after the discovery and warned that the house itself and three neighboring properties could be contaminated.
Experts will find chemicals in soil and water that include dichloromethane, a colorless liquid used as a solvent in paint and furniture-stripping products, among other industrial applications.
The province received a $930,000 bill for the improvements, although the environment ministry said in a statement that the money was recouped after the property was later sold and demolished.
Increasingly toxic chemicals
Westwick said his team has come up against increasingly toxic chemicals with the rise of fentanyl labs in recent years.
Under the wrong set of circumstances, the ingredients can melt officers' protective gear.
When the crew first enters the property, they will wear breathing apparatus similar to that worn by firefighters. Their chemical suits are attached to their shoes and gloves with tape that is specially designed not to melt.
When researchers aren't sure what chemicals they're dealing with, the team will put on different types of gloves, each designed to protect against different substances, he said.
“It's not the fentanyl itself, it's (that) these chemicals have different properties and hazards that can quickly penetrate our chemical suits. Any of them, they can penetrate our suits very quickly,” he said.
In his 15 years with the team, Westwick said it has become less common for criminals to leave their toxic substances in the barrel for someone else to clean up.
Fear of being identified through the barrels makes them more likely to throw it away, he said.
Former BC Solicitor General Kash Head praised the efforts of law enforcement to take down a 'drug superlab' in Falklands, BC, but says with such high demand for illegal drugs, the province cannot “buy its way” out of the drug crisis.
“So now it's worse, because now they pour it down the drain, pour it into the septic field, pour it into the back yard,” he said.
In 2017, provincial environmental officials had to excavate 30 cubic meters of contaminated soil near Rock Creek, BC, after liquid and solid waste was dumped near a former meth drug lab.
Health officials ordered residents of about 25 properties to stop using their water.
Earlier this year, Mounties dismantled a drug “superlab” in the Falklands in B.C.'s southern interior, calling it Canada's largest and most sophisticated.
Police said they seized a “large” amount of precursor chemicals used to make the drug, adding that environmental mitigation and cleanup costs would be at least $500,000 and likely “significantly more.”
Westwick said that over the past five years, the RCMP paid $2 million alone to remove chemicals from secret labs in British Columbia.
He said Mounties are only responsible for disposing of chemicals covered under search warrants, meaning homeowners are responsible for cleaning up any damage to buildings or the environment.
Westwick said his team doesn't actually clean the lab completely, they just take all the chemicals and precursors off the site to make it safe.
“But if the grounds are dirty, or there are refrigerators or freezers that are used, that are contaminated, we don't take it.”
He said that when his team finds evidence of chemicals being dumped from a drug lab, they will call the environment ministry, which will then decide whether to get involved.
A ministry statement said it has been involved in the disposal of materials from four illegal drug labs since 2015. It is “monitoring” the Falklands Superlab case and is “available to support the RCMP upon request.”
“All contaminated sites follow the same legal requirements and procedures for site investigation and remediation. It depends on the future use of the site and what substances and their concentrations are found,” the statement says.
“Specific substances are regulated under the Contamination Sites regime, and if pharmaceutical laboratory materials continue to evolve, keeping up with new emerging substances is part of the consideration for updates to the regulations.”
May, a certified hazmat technician, said homeowners are often surprised by tens of thousands of dollars in bills to clean up after the police leave.
A 'patchwork' of policies
Trevor Hargreaves, senior vice-president of government relations with the British Columbia Real Estate Association, said there needs to be province-wide regulations on how former drug labs and grow-ups are rehabilitated.
In October, the association released a study by researchers at the University of the Fraser Valley that reviewed 20 BC municipal bylaws and found differences in how municipalities are required to improve unsafe properties.
“Each municipality is setting their own remediation standards. So how they go about identifying remediation, the steps for remediation, what qualifies as remediation or what qualifies as a remedied home — all of those standards vary slightly between municipalities,” Hargreaves said. said
This discrepancy, he said, makes banks and insurance companies cringe, creating challenges when it comes time to sell properties that house drug labs.
“Because there's such variability in how these homes behave, lenders don't like to lend. Insurers don't like to insure. They're very cautious and afraid of these properties.”
Hargreaves said standardizing the rules for cleaning all labs, from marijuana to mushrooms to chemical-based drugs, would make the process easier for both sellers and buyers.
He says that the need for provincial regulations is increasing as there are large pharmaceutical laboratories in rural areas.
BC RCMP officials say Canada's 'largest, most sophisticated drug superlab' has been taken down. The police seized drugs and narcotics worth about half a billion rupees.
“For municipalities that are very thin on resources … why are we relying on that, where we know they're stretched thin?”
A follow-up joint statement from the ministries of environment and housing states that if soil or groundwater treatment is conducted on pharmaceutical laboratory property, it will appear in the province's public registry.
“Local governments have the authority to create regulations regulating certain activities within their boundaries, including the condition and general appearance of property,” the statement said.
“This includes… the authority to impose remedial action requirements on individuals or landowners in relation to declared hazardous conditions and nuisances on specific properties.”
In a letter sent this month to BC Premier David Abbey as well as the ministers of health, housing and environment, Hargreaves argued that a standardized, provincial multi-phase reform policy would get much-needed homes back on the market.
