EPA AND LUMBER INDUSTRY FELT THE PRESSURE ON ARSENIC-TREATED WOOD

The Use of CCA-treated Wood Will Soon End...But if We Don't Act Now, the EPA May Ignore the Need for Risk Assessments of the Existing Threat

(February, 2002)  On the issue of arsenic-treated wood, your efforts and ours have had a major impact. In response to public pressure, key members of the lumber industry have met with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to phase out the use of the toxic chromated copper arsenate (CCA) in pressure-treated wood.

This is a huge step toward making playgrounds and backyards arsenic-free and increasing the health and safety of our children. But there is still one thing that the industry doesn't want to see, and that is risk assessments of arsenic-treated wood. All in all, those who have made and sold arsenic-treated wood would prefer to see the issue just fade away now that a phase-out is in the works.

But the arsenic-treated wood that's out there now will still be in backyards, parks, playgrounds and elsewhere even after the phase-out. We need to quantify what kind of risk all that wood poses to our families, and we need to know how best to dispose of this contaminated wood as safer alternatives begin hitting the market. That will be very difficult without a thorough risk assessment.

We need to keep the pressure on to ensure that the EPA follows through with these assessments, which Generation Green and allied organizations have been insisting on for years.

"We have momentum going now," says Rochelle Davis, executive director of Generation Green. "We have to make sure the EPA takes action, and quickly."

Arsenic is on the EPA's short list of chemicals known to cause cancer in humans. But in 1984, when other uses of arsenic were banned, lumber makers received an exemption allowing them to keep using arsenic to ward of pests and rot. In addition to cancer risks, the EPA's Science Advisory Board and the National Academy of Sciences have noted that arsenic may also be a cause of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Recent tests performed by Environmental Working Group and Healthy Building Network have found that lumber currently sold in major stores like The Home Depot and Lowe's contain arsenic far in excess of safe levels...the very same kind of dangerous product they sold for years.

The EPA's own guidelines suggest that a level of 10 microgram of arsenic per liter of drinking water is the maximum level of safe exposure. Yet an area of CCA-treated lumber the size of a child's hand contains enough surface contamination to exceed that "safe" drinking water level by an average of 120 times. This puts all of us at risk. But none more so than children, who are smaller, have less developed immune systems and who, frankly, put their hands in their mouths a lot. Let's make sure that the lumber industry doesn't get a free ride like it did in the 1980s; let's make sure risk assessments are carried out in the near future.

CONTACT THE EPA TO URGE THAT RISK ASSESSMENTS OF ARSENIC-TREATED WOOD BE CONDUCTED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.