Police and firefighters had to clear away the residue of an illegal drug lab after barrels of waste were found dumped in South Langley Thursday morning.
A pedestrian spotted the barrels and reported them at around 9:30 a.m., and Langley Township firefighters were the first on the scene.
Three large plastic barrels, a couple of smaller paint cans, and several plastic garbage bags were all tossed into the ditch in the 1000 block of 232nd Street, south of 16th Avenue.
“It looks like it’s just the remnants of some sort of lab,†said Cpl. Patrick Davies, a spokesperson for the Langley RCMP.
Fortunately, none of the barrels or cans appeared to be leaking into the ditch.
Davies said the Clandestine Lab team came out to investigate the dump site, and an environmental official was also on site to look for possible contamination.
Waste chemicals are often dumped from methamphetamine labs, or other synthetic drug production labs.
The most recent major lab bust in Langley was actually undertaken by the Surrey RCMP, after they followed a case of theirs over the municipal border in April. They found a sophisticated operation in an outbuilding behind an unassuming house on 72nd Avenue near 207th Street.
In that case, they believe the drug makers were simply pouring their wastes out the back of the garage and down the slope, where a number of blackberry bushes were dying.
When toxic chemicals, whether industrial or from illicit drug labs, are dumped in Langley it is usually the municipality that has to pick up the costs of cleaning up the site.