Indiana is not exemption from drug use. Indiana has its fair share of cities which earned the title for crack cocaine distribution. Gary and Fort Wayne are two cities well known for trafficking drugs. Indiana is also well known for its Meth Lab. Methamphetamine Labs environmentally unsafe. Chemicals can be left behind in containers that can explode. Department of Environmental Management has new rules governing who can cleanup property used for manufacturing controlled substances and who will bear the cost of cleaning up the meth mess.
The directive is aimed directly at business owners whom property is used for meth cooking.
The cleanup would be required at an apartment building, multi-family dwelling, condominium, hotel or motel, rental storage units, outbuildings accessible to children, and more where the controlled substance was manufactured, with some exceptions, before the property could be reoccupied or transferred.
Sec. 8. (a) "Contaminated property" means real property, a vehicle as defined in IC 9-13-2-196, a mobile home as defined in IC 6-6-5-1, or a watercraft as defined in IC 9-13-2-198.5 that has been used for the illegal manufacture of a controlled substance.
(b) For an apartment building, multifamily dwelling, condominium, hotel, or motel, the term is limited to the unit that was identified by the law enforcement agency as having been used for the illegal manufacture of a controlled substance if all of the following are true:
(1) The entry to the unit is located on the:
(A) outside of the structure; or
(B) interior of the structure and is closed by a fire door assembly.
(2) The unit has no other opening to another unit or space.
(3) The heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system for that unit is enclosed within that unit and is separate from the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system of any other unit, except for:
(A) a hot water boiler that serves more than one (1) unit in the structure; or
(B) an air conditioning condenser located outside the structure.
(c) The property is not a contaminated property if the law enforcement agency that identifies the property as having been used for the illegal manufacture of a controlled substance determines that:
(1) the process used to manufacture the controlled substance has not been started;
(2) all chemicals to be used in the illegal manufacture of the controlled substance have been removed; and
(3) no contamination related to the illegal manufacture of a controlled substance is present.
(d) The term includes any areas outside a structure that were used for the disposal of chemicals used in the illegal manufacture of a controlled substance.
(e) A property is no longer a contaminated property when the certificate of decontamination prepared under 318 IAC 1-5-9 for that property has been issued or the activities required by 318 IAC 1-6-2 have been completed.
However, this law will impact single dwelling home. Landlords of such properties are so fearful of having to pay for such clean up that they are educating themselves on how determine if their property is being used for a meth lab.
Arthur E. Foulkes writes in the Terre Haute Tribe- Star:
When you cook meth, you’re releasing smoke [and] gas that coats all the surfaces it comes into contact with,” said Eric Lawrence, director of forensic analysis at the Indiana State Police laboratory in Indianapolis. These chemicals travel through a home’s ventilation system and are “deposited in the baby’s bedroom, in the kitchen and every place else,” Lawrence said.
Some of the potentially dangerous chemicals used in making meth include anhydrous ammonia (farm fertilizer), lithium (camera batteries), ether (engine starter), brake cleaner, muriatic acid, paint thinner and kerosene, according to information provided by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The high price of cleaning up meth lab properties has gotten the attention of people who rent residential housing, said Charlie France, a founder of Indy Property Investors, an Indianapolis group designed to help people in the real estate business.
The risk of finding a meth lab in a rental home creates “a big deterrent for us,” France said. “We’re the ones that … have our money and credit locked up” while a meth lab is being dismantled, she said. A rental home may sit vacant for months even before the landlord’s cleanup can begin, she said.
Landlord associations, such as Indy Property Investors, have sought advice from police and others about how to spot potential meth-lab activity.
“We know what to look for now,” France said, but there are still risks. “We can’t put our heads in the sand” about meth, she said.
But law enforcement must use the tool. Here in Fort Wayne, a man has been arrested for meth and bond amount informs of law enforcement interest. It tells us nothing of how much drugs were confiscated or dollar collected in the bust.
And the law impacting the manufacturing of illegal controlled substance could be used to discourage landlord from renting property to crack cocaine makers. Many rental property owners would more than like get out of the business of making money off the drug problem if they knew they would have pay for clean up in neighborhoods were drugs are sold.
Indiana Law Blog gets another hat tip.
