Calais trailer site of suspected meth lab

The Calais police department, working with the city's code enforcement officer, Ted Krug, stumbled on a suspected meth lab at one of a few vacant trailers located at Summer and Boardman streets. The department reported the news on its social media page the week of December 15.
Police Chief David Randall says that while the trailer site has since been taken over for cleanup and investigation by the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency (MDEA), it was a routine code enforcement check that discovered the situation.
Krug explains, "We're trying to batten up vacant properties. We've been contacting landowners and property owners to get places boarded up to keep animals and people out." He adds, "That particular trailer had been broken into and used." He contacted the property owner so that he could get the trailer secured.
Randall says that Krug "told me that he wanted to check that location." When the two men arrived, the trailer door was open and a window broken. When they went inside they saw the signs of what looked like meth lab activity. "We backed out," says Randall, "and contacted MDEA and they took over." He notes that one of the trailers at the property was occupied, "but the people have moved out" since the discovery.
MDEA Division 2 Commander Peter Arno explains that while he can't comment on the details of the ongoing investigation, he confirms that, based on the information received from Randall, MDEA feels there is "the strong likelihood of a methamphetamine lab present." A specially trained MDEA lab team, a chemist and members of the Department of Environmental Protection arrived at the site. "Members of the lab team responded and secured a number of items consistent with production of methamphetamine," Arno says.
Arno could not comment on whether the lab activity had been recent. However, he stresses that meth labs present unique cleanup issues. "It combines problems of addiction with chemical cleanup," he says. While the most dangerous part of the process is when the easily procured ingredients are "cooked" and can produce dangerous explosions, the finished byproducts present their own dangers. For instance, he notes that plastic soda bottles are often used for "cooking' containers and then are left behind or discarded alongside the road. Bottle pickers and redemption centers are at risk, with one such bottle full of toxic sludge turning up recently at a redemption center, he says.
"We've been watching that area hard for suspicious activity for over a year," reports Randall of the trailer site. Working with its counterpart in Baileyville, the Calais police department "has been using a forward approach" to keep vacant buildings from becoming home to drug‑related activities, Randall says. Krug explains that he was hired by the city to be in charge of buildings that could become the sites of undesirable activity because of their vacant status. "Thankfully we have a majority of landowners who are working with us," he says.
The property owner of the trailer in question, Moses Cilley, has been "very cooperative with the city's efforts since it was brought to our attention," says Calais City Manager Jim Porter. He praises the police and code enforcement actions. "You know, it takes a lot of work. You can't go on suspicion alone." He adds, "This is one example of a success of shutting that kind of activity down."
While meth labs are still a small presence in the state compared to other states in the nation, Aroostook County has seen a steady increase in meth lab identification and arrests. Arno explains that there has been an increase in meth lab activity in Washington County over the past year. However, he admits that it's hard to know at this point whether meth labs are on the rise or if it's because first responders and others who work with the public, often in their homes, have received extensive training on what certain kinds of materials in meth production look like.