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Suspected Meth Lab Remediation Project Turns Out to be Cleanup of Bomb-Making Chemicals and Interior Demolition/Gutting
Dealing with unknown, hazardous materials is all in a day’s work for MARCOR Remediation.
7/10/2008–DOWNINGTOWN, PA–MARCOR Remediation, Inc. (MARCOR) decontaminated and demolished the interior of a Delaware County, PA apartment containing a large cache of flammable chemicals and other bomb-making materials.
According to media sources, the parents of a chemist who suffered from bipolar disorder called police to check on their son, whom they had been unable to reach. When police arrived at his apartment on Sunday, June 22, they heard an explosion, saw smoke coming from the roof, and discovered that the front door felt hot. They called the local fire department, and the fire was quickly brought under control. There were no related injuries. The son, however, had apparently shot himself in the head in the bathroom. Police also found 50 boxes or more of unidentified chemicals throughout the apartment. The chemicals led police to suspect that the apartment was used as a meth lab. The property manager called MARCOR to decontaminate the premises.
According to MARCOR Project Manager Lynn Dewees, “We started the work on Monday morning, June 30. I provided some site-specific training to the crew on chemicals that we knew had been found at the apartment, and then we mobilized to the site. Within the first few minutes, I found two bottles of an unknown, unlabeled material under the kitchen sink. They were plastic bottles, but the caps had been covered over with tape, probably to make sure the bottles did not leak. Since the bottles were out of the way, our five-person crew continued working on setting everything up, and began to move some of the bulk debris.”
A few minutes later, two detectives from the local police department arrived. They wanted to take the computer hard drives and any other storage devices, as well as writings, passport, etc. The crew helped the detectives with that. Dewees showed the detectives the unknown materials and asked them to contact the HazMat squad. Then the crew found a couple of bottles of glycerin and some other unknowns. At this point, the MARCOR crew exited the premises to wait for the HazMat crew.
The HazMat team, fire department, and FBI converged on the site. The FBI agents brought a bomb-sniffing dog with them. They found more chemicals, including dinitrophenol (DNP). After they completed their work, MARCOR was allowed back into the apartment. No meth was detected in any of the sampling done on the property; however, the real concern was that the highly flammable chemicals they found could be used to make pipe bombs.
Over the course of the next day or two, the MARCOR crew found a bag of gunpowder and some bullets, but otherwise the remainder of the work was uneventful. Basically, over the course of four days, MARCOR's technicians, who are trained in bloodborne pathogen safety, disinfected the suicide area, removed many used syringes that were scattered across floor areas, and gutted the entire interior of the apartment down to the studs and bare concrete, leaving only the bathroom fixtures and kitchen sink. The apartment was then treated with a smoke/odor counteractant, and then a smoke/odor encapsulant.
MARCOR Remediation, a specialty contracting company founded in 1980 with a current staff of 700 and headquarters in Hunt Valley, MD, performs a full range of environmental contracting services. These include meth lab decontamination, trauma/crime scene cleanup, industrial cleaning, MRSA decontamination, asbestos and lead hazard abatement, mold remediation, plant/process decommissioning and demolition, soil and groundwater remediation, storage tank management, restorative cleaning work, and many other specialty project types. Customers typically include commercial and industrial firms, government agencies, the hospitality industry, educational institutions, health care facilities, industrial hygienists, environmental consultants, real estate development and property management firms, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT), and others. Each of the company’s 14 offices is staffed with the necessary mix of senior technical management, regulatory compliance experts, and an experienced HAZMAT labor force. For additional information, go to www.marcor.com or call the corporate headquarters at 800-547-0128.
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