DEPUTIES RAZE ILLEGAL JUNKYARD; MORE THAN 30 CARS FOUND ABANDONED.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Sheriff's deputies are cleaning up an illegal desert junkyard that has become a impromptu shelter for methamphetamine manufacturers.

Deputies counted 31 junked cars and five battered trailers or single-wide mobile homes, inside one of which they found rags contaminated with red phosphorus - a component used in manufacturing methamphetamine and a sign drug makers had used the mobile home for a temporary laboratory site.

``It's a place of opportunity. Nobody's there, nobody's there to smell them,'' Deputy Greg Minster said. ``There's plenty of cars there so nobody would notice another car parked out there.''

Cars and trailers are scattered with broken furniture, piles of dead branches, old appliances and miscellaneous other trash around the area, which is within a few hundred feet of Highway 138 near 190th Street East, but invisible to passing motorists because it is screened by brush.

Deputies are searching property records trying to identify the owner.

Area residents apparently treated the spot as a junkyard, dumping old cars there and returning for parts, deputies said.

``When we were out there cleaning up, two old fellows showed up and said, Hey, this is our pick-a-part place. You can't take these away,'' Minster said.

There are no records that any of the cars there are stolen vehicles and most have not been registered for six years or longer, deputies said.

Deputies from the Palmdale sheriff's station County Crime Task Force began cleaning up the junkyard two weeks ago after getting a tip about its location.

Most of the cars have been towed away, and the mobile homes will be disposed of by the end of next week, deputies said.

The trailers and mobile homes are falling apart and their tires are rotting off the wheels, so they won't be towed away. Instead, a Los Angeles County Fire Department bulldozer will be brought in to smash them into rubble.

``They're going to bulldoze the mobile homes and burn what they can and clean up what they have to,'' Deputy Paul Ullman said.

During their investigation, deputies arrested a Littlerock man, found on the property, for traffic warrants totaling $40,000.

They also arrested a man living with his 2-year-old daughter in a van on adjoining property on child-endangerment warrants. The girl was put in protective custody.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Deputy Greg Minster notes the vehicle number on an abandoned car at an illegal dumping ground off Highway 138 near Llano.

(2--Color) Tow truck operator Ray Jones hooks up chains to an overturned stripped car as part of a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department cleanup of the outlaw junkyard.

(3) Deputies and towing service employees work to clear out morethan 30 abandoned vehicles from a clearing off Highway 138.

Andy Holzman/Daily News