Federal agents say 88-year-old Saratoga man's invention is being used by meth labs

By Sean Webby

Eighty-eight-year-old retired metallurgist Bob Wallace is a self-described tinkerer, but he hardly thinks of himself as the Thomas Edison of the illegal drug world.

He has nothing to hide. His product is packaged by hand in a cluttered Saratoga garage. It's stored in a garden shed in the backyard. The whole operation is guarded by an aged, congenial dog named Buddy.

But federal and state drug enforcement agents are coming down hard on Wallace's humble homemade solution, which he concocted to help backpackers purify water.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and state regulators say druggies can use the single ingredient in his "Polar Pure" water purifier -- iodine -- to make crystal meth.

Wallace says federal and state agents have effectively put him out of business, because authorities won't clear the way for him to buy or sell the iodine he needs for his purification bottles. He has been rejected for a state permit by the Department of Justice and is scheduled to appeal his case before an administrative judge in Sacramento next month.

Meanwhile, the exasperated Stanford University-educated engineer and his 85-year-old girlfriend said the government -- in its zeal to clamp down on meth labs -- has instead stopped hikers, flood victims and others from protecting themselves against a bad case of the runs.

Collateral damage

"This old couple, barely surviving old farts, and we're supposed to be meth dealers? This is just plain stupid," Wallace said, as he sat in the nerve center of his not-so-clandestine compound surrounded by contoured hiking maps, periodic tables and the prototypes of metal snowshoes he invented a few years ago. "These are the same knotheads that make you take your shoes off in the airport."

When asked about Wallace, the DEA -- which, in all fairness, does not provide security in airports -- responded in an email that some investigations revealed that methamphetamine labs were using Polar Pure.

"Methamphetamine is an insidious drug that causes enormous collateral damage," wrote Barbara Carreno, a DEA spokeswoman. "If Mr. Wallace is no longer in business he has perhaps become part of that collateral damage, for it was not a result of DEA regulations, but rather the selfish actions of criminal opportunists. Individuals that readily sacrifice human lives for money."

Wallace and his partner, Marjorie Ottenberg, came up with the idea about 30 years ago as they planned to scale the Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico.

Hoping to avoid Montezuma's revenge, Ottenberg, a chemist by trade, read an article in Backpacker magazine about two doctors who had been infected with Giardia and recommended treating water with crystalline iodine.

"We knew the water was questionable down there, so we stole their idea," Wallace said with an unapologetic grin.

So in 1983, the couple began selling their brown bottles with a small sprinkling of iodine crystals -- about a quarter of an ounce -- in the bottom.

Polar Pure was an instant, if modest, hit among backpackers and world travelers. It was effective, light and never expired, unlike many other products. One bottle can disinfect about 2,000 quarts of water.

But about four years ago, the DEA began to look closely at the product, even citing it in a position paper, and suggested that it was being used by cranksters as well as campers.

In 2007, federal regulations were passed strictly regulating the chemical. Wallace said the new rules mandated that he had to pay a $1,200 regulatory fee, get federal and state permits, keep track of exactly who was buying his product and report anyone suspicious.

Wallace ignored the fee. And if they wanted a list of his customers, he fumed, all they would get would be camping equipment store managers and wholesalers.

There have been two major spikes in demand for Polar Pure: One in 1999 on the eve of Y2K fears and another soon after the Japanese tsunami, when people were afraid that a radiation cloud would float across the Pacific and poison water. Wallace said he sold close to 24,000 bottles in his last few months of business at $6.50 a pop.

Special Agent Richard Camps, a San Jose-based state narcotics task force commander, said he received reports of suspicious buyers.

"Weird-looking people, 'Beavis and Butt-Head'-types, were coming into camping stores and buying everything they had on the shelves," Camps said. "Then they would take off into the mountains and try to cook meth with it." The DEA reported agents found Polar Pure at a meth lab they dismantled in Tennessee two years ago.

Seeking changes

At its height, Polar Pure was bringing in about $100,000 a year, Wallace said during an interview.

"We do?" Ottenberg said in surprise. "Why don't we go on more vacations?"

"Because we're too old to do anything any more," Wallace replied.

In May, his Oklahoma distributor -- warned by the DEA -- said he could no longer send Wallace iodine.

For Wallace to comply, the state Department of Justice fingerprinted the couple and told Wallace he needed to show them such things as a solid security system for his product. Wallace sent a photograph of Buddy sitting on the front porch.

"These guys don't go for my humor," Wallace said. "Cops are the most humorless knotheads on the planet." Even so, Marco Campagna, Wallace's lawyer, promised to strengthen security and make other improvements to allay the government's concerns.

Wallace is not against regulation per se, although he thinks the demand for a customer list is an invasion of privacy and a waste of time. He just feels that the feds should tweak the law to allow distributors to pay a reasonable fee: $10, for example.

Wallace does not live a Pablo Escobar-like life. He putters, invents and drives his 1978 Mercedes-Benz that runs on cooking oil to the De Anza College track, where he jogs a few times a week, barefoot. His "bling" consists of a tumbled collection of obsidian, limestone and mica in the backyard.

"Do I look like a mafia agent?" he said.

It's not so much the financial hardship, Wallace said. It's the irritation of being prevented by what he calls an over-restrictive government to do whatever his restless mind wants to do.

"What the (expletive) else am I going to do? I'm 88!" he said. "We have to do something."

Contact Sean Webby at 408-920-5003.

WHAT IS POLAR PURE?

Polar Pure contains a small sprinkling of iodine crystals, which disinfects water tainted with bacteria.

WHY DO DRUG AGENTS CARE ABOUT IT?

Federal drug agents suspected methamphetamine-makers were using the iodine to make drugs, and strict regulations on the chemical were approved.

WHAT does it all mean for WALLACE?

Wallace said the new rules ordered him to pay a fee, get permits, and keep track of buyers. But his iodine distributor -- warned by the DEA -- won't sell to him.