By Lori EhdeTwo rural Hills men appeared Monday in Rock County District Court on controlled substance charges after authorities found a meth lab in their home Saturday.Authorities arrested 50-year-old Donald Frederick Wilson and 45-year-old Darwin Gene Otten after searching their home in the early morning hours of Saturday, Nov. 12.According to information from the Rock County Sheriff’s Department, the High Risk Entry Team was used to force entry to the home, which is located in Section 17 of Martin Township."We had knowledge of a 9 millimeter handgun on the property," Rock County Investigator Jeff Wieneke said. He said that’s why the entry team was used to execute the search warrant, and that’s why they did so at night. "Darkness provides more protection for the entry team," Wieneke said.In addition to recovering the handgun, a long list of items used to manufacture meth were also seized, mostly in a shop and corn crib on the premises.The list includes, for example, starter fluid, paint stripper, acetone, pseudoephedrine, glass jars, rubber gloves, coffee filters, lithium batteries, drain opener, anhydrous ammonia tanks, a hot grill, a bong and miscellaneous containers with colored, layered mixtures.Ten officers serve on the Southern Minnesota, Northern Iowa High Risk Entry Team. Nine additional officers assisted with the arrest, including highway patrol officers.Wieneke said only a small amount of meth was actually recovered at Wilson’s place, but he said that’s becoming typical."When people cook around here, they usually don’t produce more than 6 or 8 grams of finished product," he said.He said new laws have made it more difficult for meth cookers to get large enough quantities of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth production.But he added that meth users locally are increasingly buying from dealers who get their product from Mexico.On Monday, Wilson was charged with first degree controlled substance crime for manufacturing meth and fifth-degree controlled substance crime for possessing meth.Otten was charged with two first-degree controlled substance crimes — one for attempted manufacture of meth and one for conspiracy to produce meth (for possessing the precursors to produce meth). He was also charged with fifth-degree controlled substance crime for possessing methAs of Tuesday, they were still in custody at the Prairie Justice Center, Worthington. Wilson is being held on a $20,000 bond and Otten has a bond of $5,000.Ordinance requires owners to clean upThe two men were living on a rented acreage owned by Charlie Sandager, Hills.Dawn Sandager said she’s not surprised about the meth lab, and had in fact been in contact with law enforcement about suspicious activity there."We’d see traffic in and out of there — for three to five minutes at a time," she said. "We’ve had suspicions about what was going on."She described Wilson as a nice man who has rented the property since the early 1990s, but this was the fourth search warrant executed on the property since 2000. Three were for controlled substance crimes and one for stolen property.Saturday’s search was the first to produce an active meth lab, and the Sandagers, as owners, are responsible for the costs of cleaning up the toxic waste, according to a new county meth ordinance.Nobles Rock Public Health Sanitarian Jason Kloss said clean-up costs can range from $5,000 to $10,000 depending on the size of house, extent of contamination and length of time meth was manufactured there.Kloss will assess the site on Thursday to advise the Sandagers on the clean-up process."All I know is we’re responsible," Dawn Sandager said Tuesday. The meth products and ingredients were removed after the arrest, but a sampling on Thursday will determine the extent of further cleanup necessary.The Sandagers may need to hire an environmental cleanup company to conduct testing on the property.If enough volatile chemicals and meth residue are found, then they’ll have to proceed with ripping out all absorbent surfaces (furniture, carpet, etc., washing the walls with a chemical-soap mixture and repainting the interior. A meth lab was seized on a rental acreage near Hardwick earlier this year, and that home was recently burned because the owners determined the house wasn’t worth the cost of restoring it.