Pesticide rule limits wide range of lumber

By John Heilprin
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Wood decks, playground equipment and picnic tables treated with a preservative containing arsenic could be taken off the market soon.

Talks under way between federal regulators and lumber industry officials focus on chromated copper arsenate, or CCA, a powerful pesticide used to protect lumber from decay and insect damage.

The Environmental Protection Agency implemented a rule last fall that required labeling of all pieces of CCA-treated wood, which also is commonly found in railings, fences, posts and docks.

"We are working on an agreement," EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Piper said yesterday.

Mel Pine, a spokesman for the American Wood Preservers Institute, said it is still premature to talk of a pending deal over permitted uses for the pesticide. Nevertheless, he said, phasing out the use of CCA in pressure-treated wood is "certainly a hypothetical possibility."

USA Today first reported the pending deal in yesterday's newspaper.

The EPA has been preparing a full review of CCA-treated wood that could lead to more regulatory changes. That review will include an evaluation of how well the new consumer information programs are working.

The Environmental Working Group, which does research and advocacy, has called attention to the dangers of arsenic leaching into the ground or rubbing off on people's hands from CCA-treated wood.

The group maintains that such risks do not lessen significantly as the wood ages.

The Healthy Building Network and the Environmental Working Group petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban CCA-treated wood from playground equipment.

One option to using CCA-treated wood, says the Environmental Working Group, is another preservative, alkaline copper quat, which contains fungicides found in swimming pool chemicals but no arsenic, chromium or other EPA-classified hazardous chemicals. The group also recommends sealing CCA-treated wood structures every year with polyurethane or other hard lacquer.

Arsenic, a substance that occurs naturally and is manufactured, has been a hot topic regarding how much to allow in drinking water. The Bush administration did an about-face, first rescinding former President Clinton's lowered standard, then accepting it.

The EPA determined in 1984 that pesticides with arsenic, a known carcinogen among humans, were not safe. Two years later, the agency banned most inorganic arsenic pesticides but allowed restricted use of CCA in pressure-treated wood. Manufacturers agreed to distribute voluntarily consumer fact sheets about its use.