EPA Bans Residential Use Of Lumber Treated With Pesticide CCA After 2003
Click
Here to Add Comment Subject:
EPA Bans Residential Use Of Lumber Treated With Pesticide CCA After 2003
Date:
Tue, 5 Nov 2002 15:43:48 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
November 3, 2002
EPA Bans Residential Use Of Lumber Treated With Pesticide CCA After 2003
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Alan J. Heavens, The Philadelphia Inquirer
If the words chromated copper arsenate or the acronym CCA are not familiar, you are, according to this story, not as intimate as you should be with the composition of your deck. For many years, CCA, a restricted-use pesticide, has been employed as a preservative for wood used in outdoor applications such as decks, fences, picnic tables, playground equipment and landscaping. CCA and other chemical preservatives are forced deep into the cellular structure of the wood in a closed cylinder under pressure.
The chemicals act as a barrier to termites, and take as long as 40 years to decay, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. More than 30 million American homes have decks, and about three million decks are added every year, the National Association of Realtors says.
Although the EPA "has not concluded that CCA-treated wood poses any unreasonable risk to the public or the environment," arsenic is a known human carcinogen, and the agency believes that any reduction in the levels of potential exposure is desirable. CCA-treated lumber will continue to be produced and used in residential construction until Dec. 31, 2003. No one is suggesting that outdoor furniture or existing decks using CCA-treated lumber be destroyed and replaced, or that the soil around these structures be removed.
Those who sell and use pressure-treated lumber always have exercised considerable care in handling it. Home Depot spokesman John Simley was quoted as saying at company headquarters in Atlanta that, "We continue to emphasize safe handling, as the EPA has instructed. We also are working with wood-treaters to find an effective substitute that does not produce other maladies, such as hosting of molds." Despite the EPA's pronouncements, "we've actually had very little consumer concern.
Most customers say something along the lines of `I've been working with this stuff for years, and I know how to use it.' And they do." Another factor contributing to the EPA's decision is, the story says, a new generation of wood preservatives that appears just as effective as CCA in deterring insects and rot. These alternatives presented the government and the construction industry with an easy way out of a potential problem down the road.
Like CCA, these preservatives are also waterborne. They include alkaline copper quat, copper azole, and sodium borates. Kim Drew of the Southern Pine Council was cited as saying that wood treated with the alternative chemicals now costs 15 percent to 25 percent more than comparable CCA-treated wood.
Unlike CCA, lumber treated with the alternative products will not have the yellow end tags required for CCA as a restricted-use pesticide. Still, the EPA recommends that builders and homeowners who handle the new lumber follow the same practices they use with CCA-treated lumber. Under ideal conditions, all these preservatives, including CCA, will remain deep within the wood, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of termites seeking to feast on it.
The chief concern among environmentalists and health officials has been about what happens if CCA leaches out of the wood through normal weathering.
David Stilwell of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven tested seven decks and found that the amounts of copper, chromium and arsenic in the soil beneath the decks increased as the decks aged. Some of the readings exceeded amounts that the State Health Department considered acceptable.
If you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, please email us at list@safe2use.com.