Two Kelso men are in custody in connection with a drug investigation by the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Narcotics Task Force that included seizure of a suspected methamphetamine lab — the first meth lab found in the county in quite some time.

The discovery is heightening fears that meth labs, which are dangerous and produce toxic wastes, will make a local comeback after virtually vanishing for several years.

“We do not have a documentable increase in meth labs in this town … but we have received more information in the past several months that there are meth labs popping up again in our community,” Sgt. Kevin Tate, head of the Task Force, said Thursday.

“Other agencies are seeing the same signs. It is my expectation … that we will see more meth labs in the coming months or year,” Tate added.

The Task Force, assisted by the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office, Longview Police Department and the Washington State Patrol SWAT team, served a search warrant Monday morning at Thomas David Needham’s residence at 210 Ostrander Road north of Kelso.

Search warrants also were served at a mechanic shop Needham operates at 205 Barnes St. in Kelso and a location in the 100 block of Kelso Drive.

According to the Task Force, investigators discovered chemicals, liquids and other materials associated with the manufacture of methamphetamine in a detached garage and the kitchen of Needham’s residence. Additional evidence was recovered in other parts of the property as well as at the mechanic shop, the news release said.

Needham, 42, was booked into the Cowlitz County Jail on suspicion of manufacturing methamphetamine, manufacturing marijuana, operating a drug house and possession of a stolen vehicle, all within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. Bail has been set at $40,000.

Eric Burton Bussanich, 30, Longview, was arrested on a Department of Corrections warrant when he arrived at Needham’s residence. Other occupants of the residence were interviewed and released pending the conclusion of this investigation.

A 6-year-old child living on the property was placed in the custody of Child Protective Services.

The investigation is continuing, and more arrests are expected, Tate said.

Methamphetamine is not merely a danger to the user: The labs and dump sites are toxic to people and the environment, Tate said.

“We have so much area around our community where there are creeks and wetlands and water drainages that they just dump into. That’s scary for us,” he said.

Meth labs virtually disappeared in Washington after 2005, the year Washington began requiring people to show identification when buying products containing pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient for making meth.

In 2006, Oregon passed a law requiring a prescription to buy pseudoephedrine products.

The legislation had dramatic results. In 2004, authorities busted or discovered 947 meth labs and equipment dump sites in Washington, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The number dropped to 532 in 2005 and dropped to 178 in 2006.

Locally, the Task Force discovered 11 labs and dump sites in 2004. Since 2005, they have found only six meth labs and seven dump sites.

As domestic meth labs disappeared, “superlabs” sprung up in Mexico, Tate said.

But according to the National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican authorities placed restrictions on the availability of meth precurser chemicals in 2007, and meth availability in Mexico began to drop.

Although some meth addicts turned to heroin, as noted in other Daily News reports, others have teamed up — or hired people — to buy their limit of pseudoephedrine products until they can pool enough to make a batch of meth, Tate said.

This process, known as “smurfing,” is “a significant issue here in Southwest Washington,” he said. “We don’t have the law enforcement resources to track those purchases. We’ve also seen some resistance from retailers to share the information they’ve got on purchasers to assess whether we have smurfers, or do we just have people with colds.”

He has also heard from federal and state law enforcement agencies that “our organized crime drug suppliers are actively seeking ways to recruit large-scale commercial cooks in the Southwest Washington region.”

He said, “If the expected increases of labs appears, we’re going to have to pull officers away from the long-term organized crime investigations that we’re doing and focus on tweaker labs, user-level labs around the area.

“I hope that I’m wrong. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.”