- April 24, 2024
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The Ormond Beach Police Department will have an increased role in disposing of small meth labs found in Ormond Beach.
BY MATT MENCARINI | STAFF WRITER
The Ormond Beach City Commission approved, at its Nov. 7 meeting, the city’s involvement in a state program that shifts extra responsibilities, and costs, for meth lab disposal to local agencies.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Methamphetamine Lab Hazardous Waste Storage Container program is meant to help reduce state and federal budgets, Police Chief Andy Osterkamp said.
Averaging less than one meth lab per year in the past five years, Ormond law enforcers shouldn't see too much of a change when it comes to raiding standalone labs. But mobile labs, usually located in the trunks of cars, are a different story.
Tunk labs are a growing trend among meth producers, according to Osterkamp.
“We sent a couple of our officers, evidence and crime scene technicians, to learn how to handle and deal with materials found at a meth lab,” Osterkamp said. “They are the first ones to respond to a small lab.”
If a meth lab is determined to be bigger than the police department can handle, the responding units will secure the location, alert other law enforcement agencies and wait for them to arrive.
Osterkamp said the determination of whether a meth lab is too big will be done on a case-by-case basis, and there’s no predetermined scale.
The agreement also identifies a location in the county, controlled by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, where materials collected at meth labs can be taken for storage or be destroyed.
The program is the result of a similar program between the state, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which required the state to initiate this program with local law-enforcement agencies.
