Drug superlabs leave a toxic mess. Some say B.C.'s cleanup rules are a mess, too

Investigators are seen at a drug lab in Falkland, B.C., in this handout image provided by the RCMP. Mounties have dismantled what they say is the largest, most sophisticated illicit drug "superlab" in Canada that had been acting as a "supermarket" for organized crime. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-RCMP

When Dean May's team of cleaners entered the home, dressed head to toe in protective suits, thick green dust covered every surface.

"We literally left footprints when we were walking in the house," he recalled.

They were traipsing through the toxic remnants of an illicit fentanyl pill-pressing operation in northern British Columbia three or four years ago, and May says it was one of the worst scenes he's been to.

For 14 years, May, who co-owns Calgary-based Mayken Hazmat Solutions, has been cleaning the mess left behind by drug labs in Western Canada after police are done with the scene.

As clandestine drug labs become larger and more complex, so does the toxic mess they leave behind and the tools required to clean them up, creating expensive and dangerous situations for both people and the environment.

In B.C., the RCMP say they've spent millions over the last five years disposing of chemicals found in labs, but the rest of the hefty cleanup bill is often left to property owners who call private companies like May's.

B.C.'s real estate association says consistent provincewide rules are needed for how to remediate properties back to being livable.

May said hidden labs making synthetic drugs including fentanyl and methamphetamines using industrial chemicals are both more toxic than mouldy marijuana grow operations and quicker to set up, meaning it's easier for rented properties to be turned into labs without property owners knowing.

"Somebody can turn a home into a lab in a matter of days, whereas back in the grow-op days, it took quite a bit of time to set up the grow-op and wire it," he said.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Derek Westwick runs B.C.'s Clandestine Lab Enforcement and Response team, which investigates synthetic drug labs.

He grew up in the area of Langley, B.C., where a single-family home was turned into a large ecstasy lab 10 years ago.

He remembers the "cook" in that case was pouring chemicals through a pipe into the big backyard, allowing chemicals to seep into a ditch.

A neighbour complained in a letter to the local Langley Advance Times about "open toxic ditches and putrid brown sludge oozing" around the home.

She wrote that her neighbour's koi fish and trees had died, and that when it rains "the smell comes and we are coughing."

The province stepped in when then-environment minister Mary Polak declared the location a "high-risk contaminated site" a year after it was found and warned that the home itself as well as three neighbouring properties could be contaminated.

Experts would find soil and water containing chemicals that included dichloromethane, a colourless liquid used as a solvent in paint and furniture-stripping products, as well as other industrial applications.

The province footed a $930,000 bill for remediation, though the Ministry of Environment said in a statement that it got the money back when the property was later sold and torn down.

'THEY'LL PENETRATE OUR SUITS QUITE FAST'

Westwick said his team has come up against increasingly toxic chemicals in recent years, with the rise of fentanyl labs.

Under the wrong set of circumstances, ingredients can melt officers' protective gear.

When the team first enters a property, they'll wear breathing apparatus similar to those worn by firefighters. Their chemical suits are attached to their boots and gloves with tape that is specially designed not to melt.

When investigators are unsure exactly what chemicals they're dealing with, the team will layer up with a variety of gloves, each designed to protect from something different, he said.

"It's not fentanyl itself, it's (that) these chemicals have such different properties and hazards they quickly can permeate our chemical suits. Any one of them, they'll penetrate our suits quite fast," he said.

In his 15 years with the team, Westwick said it has become less common for criminals to leave their toxic ingredients in barrels for someone else to clean up.

Fear of being identified through the barrels means they are more likely to just dump it, he said.

"So now that's worse, because now they pour it down the drains, pour it in a septic field, pour it out in the backyard," he said.

In 2017, provincial environmental officials had to excavate 30 cubic metres of contaminated soil from a former meth lab near Rock Creek, B.C., after liquid and solid waste was dumped near a drug lab.

Health authorities ordered residents of about 25 properties to stop using their water.

Earlier this year, Mounties dismantled a drug "superlab" in Falkland, in B.C.'s southern Interior, calling it the largest, most sophisticated in Canada.

Police said they seized “massive” amounts of precursor chemicals used to make the drugs, adding that environmental mitigation and cleanup cost would be at least $500,000 and possibly “significantly higher.”

Westwick said that in the last five years, the RCMP had paid just shy of $2 million to remove chemicals from clandestine labs in British Columbia.

He said Mounties are only responsible for disposing of chemicals covered under search warrants, meaning homeowners are in charge of cleaning up whatever damage to the building or the environment is left behind.

"I do not clean up labs, they're left half as messy. I take all the chemicals to render them safe. I'll take all the precursors and the offence-related property. But if the grounds are dirty, or there's fridges or freezers that are used, that are contaminated, we don't take that," Westwick said.

"So that's just a fraction of what is spent."

Westwick said whenever his team finds evidence that chemicals from drug labs have been dumped, they'll call the Ministry of Environment, which then decides whether to get involved.

A statement from the ministry says it has been involved in disposing of material from four illegal drug labs since 2015. It said it's "monitoring" the case of the Falkland superlab and is "available to support the RCMP upon request."

"All contaminated sites follow the same legal requirements and processes for site investigation and remediation. It depends on the future use of a site and what substances and their concentrations are found," the statement says.

"Specific substances are regulated under the contaminated sites regime, and if drug labs materials keep evolving, keeping up with new emerging substances is part of the considerations for updates to regulations."

May, a certified hazmat technician, said homeowners are often shocked by the bill for tens of thousands of dollars to clean a house after police have left.

His company follows decontamination guidelines laid out by Alberta Health, while in B.C. they have plans approved by whichever authority is in charge of a site, he said.

After first being cleaned by a "sacrificial" HEPA-filter vacuum, a drug lab will be sprayed to neutralize any drug remnants left behind, he said. Then every item in the home must be removed and decontaminated separately before getting thrown out.

"All the contents, they all get disposed of," he said.

'PATCHWORK OF POLICIES'

Trevor Hargreaves, the senior vice-president of government relations with the British Columbia Real Estate Association, said there needs to be provincewide rules around how former drug labs and grow ops are remediated.

In October, the association released a study by researchers from the University of the Fraser Valley that reviewed 20 B.C. municipal bylaws and found differences in how municipalities require unsafe properties be remediated.

"Each municipality is setting their own remediation standards. So how they go about identifying remediation, the steps to remediate, what qualifies as remediation or what qualifies as a remediated home -- all of those standards differ slightly between municipalities," Hargreaves said.

The inconsistencies, he said, make banks and insurance companies squeamish, creating challenges when it comes time to sell a property that used to be a drug lab.

"Because there is such variability in terms of the way that these homes are treated, lenders don't like to lend. Insurers don't like to to insure. They're extremely cautious and scared of these properties," he said.

Hargreaves said standardizing the rules for cleaning up all labs, ranging from marijuana, to mushrooms, to chemically based drugs, would make the process easier for both sellers and buyers.

As larger drug labs are found in rural locations, he said, the need for provincial rules increases.

"For the municipalities that are very spare on resources ... why are we depending on that, where we know they're stretched thin?"

A followup joint statement from the Environment and Housing ministries said if soil or groundwater remediation is conducted on a drug lab property, it will appear on the province's public registry.

"Local governments have the authority to create bylaws regulating certain activities within their boundaries, including the condition and general appearance of property," the statement says.

"This includes … the authority to impose remedial action requirements on a person or landowner in relation to hazardous conditions and declared nuisances on specific properties."

In a letter sent to B.C. Premier David Eby as well as the ministers of health, housing and the environment this month, Hargreaves argues a standardized, provincial multi-step remediation policy would get many much-needed homes back on the market.

The report also calls on the government to create a training and certification process for professionals involved in home remediation.

"Remediation standards are necessary to ensure homes used in drug operations are safe to reintroduce into the housing market," the letter says.

"The current patchwork of policies at the municipal level are insufficient to ensure the health and safety of residences and their occupants."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 22, 2024.