California law enforcement sees every drug seizure as a win in the battle against the deadly fentanyl crisis. But it’s also a problem: What do you do with all that fentanyl — or methamphetamine or cocaine — once you no longer need it as evidence?
When the lockers get full, police saddle up in armored convoys and head to Crows Landing, a town of just 212 in Stanislaus County, to destroy the drugs in the state’s last trash incinerator.
But on Dec. 2, that facility, operated by the waste management company Reworld, will close, leaving cops scrambling for a new plan as their lockups overflow with drugs.
“We will need to identify a safe solution because we will eventually run out of space,” Sgt. Adam Schermerhorn of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said in an email.
Of the seven Bay Area law enforcement agencies that responded to requests from The Standard for comment, none had a plan for destroying drugs after the Crows Landing facility closes.
Joseph T. Latta, a former Burbank cop who consults as an evidence expert, said California law enforcement agencies use the Stanislaus plant en masse. If departments are getting rid of seized substances outside of Crows Landing, Latta said, “nobody would know about it.”
There was previously another Reworld incinerator in the state, in Long Beach. It closed in January, citing fiscal challenges.
In the Bay Area, police and sheriff’s departments from Berkeley to South San Francisco confirmed they use the Crows Landing plant to destroy drugs. The San Francisco Police Department declined to say how it disposes of its stockpiles.
Amid the city’s drug crisis and police crackdown, cops are quickly accumulating drugs: Over the last 18 months, the SFPD confiscated more than 100,000 grams of fentanyl alone.
“You just figure you got rooms just bursting at the seams,” said Mark Lindbergh, a director of the California Association of Property and Evidence. “Stuff’s gonna start ripping. And that’s how you get items mixed up and lost.”
Spokesperson Nicolle Robles would not confirm how many in-state police and sheriff’s departments the plant serves but wrote in a statement that Reworld “is proud to support over 500 law enforcement organizations across the country with safe and secure material destruction.”
Robles did not answer questions about why the Crows Landing location is closing.
In addition to drugs, the plant destroys seized weapons, according to a 2005 report from the San Joaquin News Service. Transporting narcotics and firearms is a huge security risk.
“There’s not an armored car big enough,” Latta said. “Sometimes, these larger departments will take a semi.”
Some departments bring along SWAT teams and even police helicopters for protection, Latta added.
So what will California law enforcement agencies do with the drugs they seize come December? Presumably, they could either send them to plants in other states, like the Reworld facility in Oregon, or accumulate ever-bigger evidence piles in their property rooms.
“Everybody is backlogged right now,” Lindbergh said. It’s an issue that has caught the attention of state legislators.
“I am disappointed to see yet another valuable resource taken away from law enforcement,” said Assemblyman Juan Alanis (R-Modesto), whose district includes Crows Landing. “In the midst of a growing opioid crisis, we must find safe ways to dispose of illegal substances and keep our communities safe.”
Latta added there are almost no regulations governing drug disposal. California has environmental laws that regulate air pollution via incineration, he said, but there are no state or federal standards for destroying drugs in general.
One company looking to fill the gap when the plant shuts down is Gaiaca, a cannabis waste management company that this year started offering on-site narcotics destruction. Instead of incinerating the drugs, Gaiaca pulverizes them and immerses the resulting dust in a solution that strips their potency.
Co-founder Garrett Rodewald said the closure of Reworld’s Long Beach plant and, soon, its Crows Landing facility inspired his company to expand its business.
Gaiaca has already seen a spike in demand from law enforcement, he said. His service is more expensive than the incinerators (Gaiaca charges by the pound rather than the ton), but Lindbergh said the cost could be offset by convenience — cops won’t have to convoy the drugs to Crows Landing. And anyway, they don’t seem to have another choice. Incineration in California is going the way of the dodo.
“Those days are over,” Rodewald said.