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BARRE – A rudimentary methamphetamine lab found by police in a vacant Barre apartment Wednesday morning couldn't have produced significant quantities of the synthetic stimulant, according to Barre City Police Chief Tim Bombardier.

Though city officials say the discovery is cause for concern, they stressed the very small size of the abandoned meth operation that led to the daylong closure of a quiet residential street and the temporary evacuation of residents in neighboring homes.

"This was not a situation where significant amounts of the drug were being produced," Bombardier said Thursday.

The incident began after the building's owner discovered an "unreported fire" in an apartment recently abandoned by the former tenants. When Barre City firefighters saw what looked like the makings of a meth lab, city police responded before turning the scene over to a Vermont State Police hazardous-materials team.

Bombardier would not say whether investigators have identified either a suspect or person of interest in the case, though he said detectives were looking to contact the most recent tenants at 11 French St., which is located off Washington Street/Route 302 east not far from downtown. He would not provide the tenants' names, but said he believes they are still in Vermont. The building's owner, Michael Poirier, was unavailable for comment Thursday.

According to neighbors, the tenants were seen moving items out of the building as recently as Saturday.

Bombardier said evidence at the scene indicates that someone had at least been attempting to produce the drug.

"It has all the appearance of a meth lab and the information we have indicates that's exactly what was going on," Bombardier said.

The apartment and surrounding buildings were deemed safe after a state hazardous materials team determined that no noxious chemicals had been left behind.

"There were no hazardous byproducts left behind, which means someone really cleaned up," Bombardier said. "I'm very confident someone had a very small attempt at making methamphetamine, and the fire was the result of something going wrong."

Lt. Jim Cruise, head of the Vermont State Police's Clandestine Drug Lab Enforcement Team, said Wednesday's discovery reflects an increase in the number of meth labs surfacing in Vermont.

"We are seeing an uptick in labs – both in what we call traditional labs and the one-pot cook method," Cruise said. "That's consistent with the trend we're seeing across new England as well."

Earlier this year, police arrested two men in St. Albans for cooking and selling methamphetamine out of the back of a car. The prevalence of meth labs, according to official statistics, has remained relatively low in Vermont and since the state's first bust in Rutland County in 2004. According the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, law enforcement authorities discovered one lab in Vermont in 2005, five in 2006, two in 2007 and two in 2008.

But Cruise said those data don't include the labs discovered by authorities "after the fact," or dump sites at which meth producers discard their chemicals and equipment.

"This year alone we're up to at least five labs we've either gone in on or encountered after the fact," Cruise said, but methamphetamine ranks low on the list of drug abuse.

"In the grand scheme of the drug spectrum we see out there, it's still on the very low end of things as far as numbers," he said.

But the potentially severe impacts of meth production, he said, make a serious issue for law enforcement.

"You're dealing with a lot of unknown chemicals. In their commercial packaging, these chemicals are fairly innocuous and safe and are found in common household products," Cruise said. "But when mixed, they can produce anything from flammable vapors to highly poisonous gases."

Sodium hydroxide, an ingredient used in many meth labs, is acidic enough, according to Cruise, to "basically liquefy your skin almost instantly. It's not something you want to come into contact with. And when you mix it with acids or acetone or ether, you've got an unknown chemical cloud."

Cruise said the Barre apartment was deemed safe after the drug lab team found no evidence of harmful contamination.

Bombardier said Barre City residents are right to be concerned about the discovery, but the operation was a far cry from the so-called "superlabs" that produce enormous quantities of the drug for widespread distribution.

"Anybody making any amount is a serious issue, but it wasn't like someone set up a superlab," Bombardier said. "From the size of what I saw, it doesn't look like there wasn't a large quantity of anything. This could well be a personal use thing."

Bombardier also said the discovery of the meth lab Wednesday does not reflect a growing meth problem in his coverage area.

"Until this event we haven't really seen it here," Bombardier said. "Until yesterday, if you asked me if there were any indication that meth was here, I would have told you no."

Barre City Mayor Thomas Lauzon agreed, saying people shouldn't use the event to paint Barre as a source city for the stimulant.

"It shouldn't be a reflection on Barre, it should be a wake up call to the whole state," Lauzon said. "It doesn't mean we're a major source of the drug."

Lauzon said the landlord had a history of problems with former tenants who, according to Lauzon, hadn't paid rent in five months.

"The landlord noticed troubling behavior, but nothing that rose to the level of harming public safety or indicating criminal behavior," Lauzon said. "You can't really respond in an official way to a large number of guests coming and going. That's not reasonable cause to search an apartment."

On the positive side, Barre City Manage John Craig said the incident spotlights the competency of the city's public-safety response system.

"What I've been saying to the public is "I'm happy we found this because it means we've done everything right," Craig said. "Firefighters immediately saw something suspicious and because of their training called in police … We did everything right."

Police agencies and substance-abuse officials in other states – particularly on the West Coast and Midwest – list methamphetamine as their single greatest narcotics problem. But its use does not appear to be widespread in Vermont.

"We actually are not seeing that much of an increase in the treatment side," says Barbara Cimaglio, deputy commissioner of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs at the Vermont Department of Health. "However we are always vigilant about methamphetamine because it's a drug that has caused so much devastation in other states."

Cruise said there's strong evidence to indicate that meth use is on the rise in Vermont.

"Without getting into the details of how we know what we know, we are seeing an upward trend of meth use in Vermont," he said.

Alcohol and marijuana remain the top substances for which Vermonters seek substance-abuse treatment, followed by prescription drugs.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, methamphetamine, sometimes called "crystal," is a powerful and highly addictive substance that gives users an intense short-term "rush" of energy and feelings of euphoria. The drug, which can be smoked, snorted, injected intravenously or ingested orally, can ultimately lead to feelings of paranoia and has been linked to psychosis and chronic health problems in longer-term users.

In 2007, Vermont passed so-called "precursor legislation" that regulates the sale of over-the-counter cold medicines containing low doses of ephedrine, often used as the active ingredient in methamphetamine.

According to the 2007 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 4 percent of children in grades 8 through 12 have used methamphetamine at least once in their lives, down from 5 percent in the 2005 survey.

Nationwide, according to 2008 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 5 percent of people aged 12 and older have tried methamphetamine. More than 40 percent were reported to have tried marijuana in their lifetimes.

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Sodium hydroxide, an ingredient used in many meth labs, is acidic enough, according to Cruise, to "basically liquefy your skin almost instantly.

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someone needs to brush up on their basic chemistry knowledge