Clanton Police Department officers recovered 11 methamphetamine labs on Monday, in a scenario that has become all too common.

Officers were driving to execute an eviction at a residence off Glenn Road when they noticed what appeared to be drug paraphernalia off Cooedy Road.

The officers found the labs stuffed inside five or six bags on the side of the road.

“We drove down the road and kept finding them,” said one of the officers, David Bone.

Two more meth labs were later recovered off County Road 49.

Bone and officer David Kline are HAZMAT certified, and thus could recover the labs and take them back to the police department.

However, no CPD officer is certified to transport the labs, Chief Brian Stilwell said, so the labs are being stored until a certified transporter with the Chilton County Sheriff’s Office can take them to be destroyed.

In part because of the training needed for officers to deal with meth labs, Stilwell said the drug is particularly costly for law enforcement.

“We’ve had over 20 just this year,” Stilwell said. “It’s just become a huge problem.”

The meth labs are each basically two plastic bottles, both of which are needed to produce the drug.

One of the bottles can contain dangerous hydrochloric acid, while the other is often described as a smaller version of the “fertilizer bombs” made infamous by domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh.

The officers stressed the danger posed by the labs and said anyone coming across one should not handle it. Instead, CPD can be reached at 755-1416 or narcotics@clantonpd.org.

“A meth lab can become active anytime,” Kline said.