Cold Spring Fire and Police Present Annual Reports

COLD SPRING -- The Cold Spring Police and Fire Departments released their findings over the past year in their 2015 annual reports at tonight's (Tuesday) City Council meeting.

Cold Spring Fire and Rescue responded to 398 calls last year in Cold Spring, Wakefield, Collegeville, and Luxemburg.

"It's the most we've ever had," says Chief Dan Weber, who's been a firefighter for 24 years. "We usually average around 330 [calls], so it's been a busy year -- in December alone, we had 50 calls, so it was a lot."

Weber says out of the 398 calls, 73 were for fires while the rest were for medical emergencies.

As for the Cold Spring/Richmond Police Department, officers responded to 5,635 calls up from 5,189 in 2014. Chief Chris Boucher the uptick is a result of officers no longer patrolling Wakefield, which means more time is spent in Cold Spring and Richmond.

Boucher says it was a relatively normal year, but says he was disappointed to see more arrests in the area over a new drug, known as the "meth of the weed world."

"It's kind of sad to see an influx of marijuana wax, which is something new," Boucher says. "It's very dangerous and I hate to say, [but] it's probably going to be something we'll see much more of in the future."

Marijuana wax is a syrup-looking drug that produced using butane gas and Boucher says it ups the levels of THC (the addictive component of marijuana) from 12-15% in regular marijuana to 80-90% in the wax.