Alaska State Troopers in Palmer shut down a methamphetamine lab and arrested two local residents on Sunday, charging them with manufacturing the illicit drug. The couple reportedly was supposed to be house sitting.
Troopers responded to a Palmer residence and found signs of a possible meth lab on June 16. They contacted the statewide drug enforcement unit, which obtained a search warrant. Drug unit investigators found numerous meth-lab-related items, like lithium batteries, pseudoephedrine, other cold packs and Coleman fuel, said troopers' spokeswoman Megan Peters via email.
During the investigation, two Palmer residents were located and arrested. Derek L. Smith, 38, and Carleigh Kaye Fox, 24, were charged with manufacturing meth, possessing chemicals with the intent to make meth and violating conditions of release.
The Palmer residence was "a single-family house with five or six people living (in) it, but the family who owned the house had not been at the residence as they were on vacation and just came home to find the housesitters cooking meth," Peters said. Troopers arrested Smith and Fox at another local residence, she said.
Authorities were unable to specify the size or capacity of the lab, as much of the evidence allegedly was burned in a fire pit, a common practice among meth manufacturers. This was the second lab in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough that the drug unit has handled this year. Both used the "one-pot method," which is a "fairly common, and potentially dangerous, method for making meth," Peters said. She declined to describe the process; the troopers want to avoid teaching the public how to make meth, she said.
In February, Smith was arrested for second-and third-degree theft, as well as criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor. Fox was arrested in April on controlled substances charges, according to online court records. Both are being held at the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility on no bail conditions.
According to troopers' 2012 annual drug report, authorities continue to discover meth labs in single and multi-family residences; the labs are located in many unassuming Alaska neighborhoods. The clandestine nature of meth manufacturing and use of ignitable, corrosive and toxic chemicals pose health risks. Explosions can happen. Children have been found living at the labs, and loaded guns also are found at many of the labs, the report says.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation maintains a list of properties identified as illegal drug factories. State law required the properties to be listed starting in mid-2006. Certified companies clean up the sites, but reoccupation can prove expensive. The list goes back as far as March 2005 and contains 35 properties, the majority of which have yet to be described as "fit-for-use." Properties remain on the list for five years after receiving the "fit-for-use" designation.
Nearly half of the properties are in Mat-Su Borough communities, a largely suburban and rural region directly north of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city. A total of 17 Mat-Su properties occupy the list. And six labs have been discovered on the Kenai Peninsula; eight have been discovered in or near Fairbanks.
Last year, troopers discovered only three meth labs statewide, according to the drug report. They discovered eight in 2011. But only 6.2 pounds of meth were seized in 2011 while troopers' seized 35.2 pounds in 2012.
"Despite the smaller number of labs seized, methamphetamine, mainly from sources outside the state, continues to be readily available throughout (Alaska), but is more prominent in the larger populated areas," the drug report says.
Troopers also are concerned about the resurgence of heroin and other opiates in urban areas.
Contact Jerzy Shedlock at jerzy(at)alaskadispatch.com