South Louisiana farmers, already hard hit by two hurricanes and a drop in the price of sugar and rice, now have a new worry — thieves and their own safety. Methamphetamine users are taking to farmers’ fields in search of a key meth ingredient, the only ingredient not found at Wal-Mart or the dollar store.
Although anhydrous ammonia is a precursor chemical necessary to make the narcotic, only a small amount is needed to produce the drug. Buyers of anhydrous ammonia must have permits to purchase and possess, so meth producers must steal it.
Farmers, however, depend on it as a major source of nitrogen fertilizer for agriculture, especially in the springtime. They keep it on their fields in 500-gallon or 1,000-gallon containers, and in south Louisiana, the tanks are everywhere, said Jim Monroe, assistant to the president of the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation.
The Federation began addressing the problem when area farmers first started noticing the stealing, Monroe said.
Farmers were seeing their locks cut off the tanks and tubes and duct tape left near the container.
“It’s happened fairly regularly in the state for the last three years,” he said.
One St. James Parish farmer, Ozahn Gravois, has seen people waiting in a line in his sugar cane fields to access the ammonia tank during the common nighttime raids.
“It’s like Canal Street during Mardi Gras,” Gravois said of his fields.
The thieves will take turns or tell another to come back in an hour, said Mike Danna, the Federation’s director of public relations.
The farmers shouldn’t approach them, though, because they’ll do anything, especially if they’re under the influence of the drug, Monroe said.
Before people began stealing it and tampering with the tanks, farmers knew the anhydrous ammonia they used on their land was extremely dangerous. Anhydrous ammonia is about half as expensive as other nitrogen fertilizers, making it more popular with farmers, according to the Farm Bureau Federation.
“The stuff is very dangerous. It’ll blind you, burn you when handled and explode,” Danna said.
Anhydrous means without water, and anhydrous ammonia requires contact with water to turn into a gas, according to the Farm Bureau Federation.
If the chemical comes in contact with skin or body tissues, it causes severe dehydration and chemical burns, according to the Federation.
“It’ll basically turn you into a mummy,” Monroe said, describing the effects of human contact with the anhydrous ammonia. “One Tangipahoa milkman saw a guy running across the road between fields and described him as a ‘human piece of dry ice.'”
The thieves come to the fields with ice chests or propane tanks to put the ammonia in and the materials needed to transfer the chemical, Danna said.
“They’ll take an ice chest, tape it up, punch a hole in it, and after they siphon the ammonia into it, plug it,” he said.
Duct tape, garden hoses, bicycle inner tubes, buckets and coolers often are left behind near tanks as frightened or surprised thieves leave, according to the Midwest HIDTA.
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation, State Police with assistance from the Midwest HIDTA, and local law enforcement offered steps to deter the theft of ammonia from wholesale distributors and farmers.
“The farmers know now. They’re doing a better job locking it down,” said Capt. Shane Evans, head of East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Offices’ Narcotics Division.
However, he said, the thieves have lists of where the ammonia is stored, and they steal what they need. They’ll cut the locks, tear down the fences and bring the materials needed to use the tanks that farmers have put away, Evans said.
Adding to the problem in Louisiana is the fact that most ammonia produced in the country is made at plants in south Louisiana, he said.
“Go sit at the levee down by LSU and count the trucks driving by, most will say anhydrous ammonia, ammonia or anhydrous on the side of it,” Evans said.
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, factories in Louisiana produce more than “two-thirds of all of the anhydrous ammonia that is used in the Midwest.”
Other than locking and fencing the ammonia tanks, HIDTA warns farmers to locate the tanks in open areas, especially near roadways, encourage producers to deliver tanks close to actual application time, inspect tanks upon delivery and return for signs of tampering and store hoses and connectors separately.
“Put up lights in the area, work night shifts. Farmers have to do anything to help deter [the thieves],” Danna said.
Gravois, said he appreciates local law enforcement helping farmers deal with the problem. He said it seems there’s not enough farmers can do, though, to prevent the stealing of anhydrous ammonia. But, they can make it hard.