SHADY COVE, Ore. — “This stuff’s dangerous. It kills people. And I’m pretty sure the residuals of it are going to kill people as well,” said Cliff Mead, a neighbor.
Mead remembers the shock he felt last year after learning his neighbor’s home was contaminated with meth.
“How much of that is carried over to my property, you know? I don’t know if my wall’s contaminated, I don’t have the money to check it,” said Mead. “Is my property contaminated? I have no idea.”
NBC5 News first told you about Lori Biando in December of 2018 who said she paid Medford-based Neilson Research Corporation to run tests for methamphetamine residue.
“I’m living in a home that’s infested with meth and I don’t know what to do,” Biando said in a 2018 interview.
The report showed 6 out of 10 sites in the home tested over the Oregon Health Authority standard.
The company’s owner John Neilson said the Shady Cove Police Department, which disbanded years ago, should have reported Biando’s house to the state clandestine drug lab program.
That’s after a 2002 police report showed the home as the site of a major meth bust.
“The police did not do that. They did not report this to the state that they had busted a drug lab on this property. So they dropped the ball,” said Neilson.
But the Oregon Health Authority also told NBC5 News last year it didn’t have any record of the home in its data base.
According to Tim Shah, the Environmental Consulting Manager for NWFF a company that cleans up meth residue, that means the home isn’t required to be properly evaluated and decontaminated.
“Meth, even just using meth, the gases that are given off during the use… cling to everything and anything,” said Shah.
In his 3 years cleaning up homes contaminated with meth, Shah says the toxins are not only dangerous to ingest or touch but are very tricky to get rid of.
He says the process can take days to weeks and that’s if it’s done right.
“There’s a whole series of steps and procedures to handle the contaminated material not expose yourself and not expose others,” Shah said.
The homeowner declined to interview on camera but told NBC5 News she’s tearing down the house herself and doesn’t see any health issues there at all.
That’s a major problem for neighbors like Mead.
“My thought is where are they taking the contaminated soil to? Are they having it put into a landfill? Are they taking it to biomass and having it burned and put into the air,” he asked.
Shady Cove City Council says they can’t require the property to be cleaned up according to Oregon Health Authority standards because the home isn’t listed in the state’s clandestine drug lab program.
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