Groups concerned about kids' risk of cancer, but industry says fears are exaggerated
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Annysa Johnson
Published August 12, 2001
At first glance, the side yard of Kay and David Rolston's Fox Point home looks like kid heaven. A wooden swing set, bought from a neighbor years ago, has blossomed into a full-blown playground featuring - in addition to the swings - monkey bars, two treehouses and a sandbox.
But environmental advocacy groups want the Rolstons and other consumers to know that pressure-treated lumber - used in items ranging from fence posts to picnic tables, decks to children's play equipment - contains arsenic, which is known to cause cancer.
New studies in recent years and criticism by public interest and environmental groups have moved pressure-treated lumber to the center of a national debate over the long-term risks of exposure to arsenic, and tighter regulations may be on the horizon.
The arsenic-based pesticide used to protect most treated lumber from insects and rot is leaching out of the wood and may significantly increase the risk of cancer, according to a report released this spring by the Environmental Working Group and Healthy Building Network.
According to research cited in that report, children may be particularly at risk because of the way their bodies metabolize arsenic, and they are unable to convert it into less toxic forms.
"There was never any thought that the wood could be dangerous," said Kay Rolston, as her boys climbed the treehouses and sifted through mounds of sand.
The Rolstons' play set is one of eight tested for arsenic by the Journal Sentinel this summer. Of those tested - in backyards, schoolyards and city parks in the Milwaukee area - all showed some level of arsenic, but the Rolstons' registered the highest.
"I'll probably take the whole thing down. They're in it all the time," Rolston said.
Chromated copper arsenate In all likelihood, the wood used to build the tested play sets was treated with chromated copper arsenate, the pesticide used in virtually all arsenic-treated lumber in the United States.
The treated-lumber industry says that chromated copper arsenate is safe and is not leaching out of wood at hazardous levels. Others say the research is inconclusive.
The Environmental Protection Agency began phasing out arsenic-based pesticides in the 1980s and banned the last of them - except chromated copper arsenate - in 1993. It had considered outlawing chromated copper arsenate but declined, saying it would create an undue economic hardship on the now $4 billion-a-year wood treatment industry.
Since then, however, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has begun considering a ban on arsenic-treated lumber in children's playground equipment. And the EPA is reassessing the health risks associated with chromated copper arsenate and re-evaluating its use in wood treatment.
In addition, the EPA is pushing the industry to beef up the voluntary consumer awareness campaign it adopted to avert regulation in the 1980s but never adequately implemented.
And new warning labels are expected to be placed on all such treated lumber by fall.
In Miami, lawyers have filed a class-action lawsuit against the wood-treatment industry and home-improvement chains Home Depot and Lowe's, saying they endangered and misled consumers. Several public playgrounds were shut down across Florida earlier this year after arsenic was found leaching from the wood.
Several states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida and Connecticut, are considering stricter regulations.
State studies safety
In Wisconsin, the proposed 2001-'03 state budget includes a provision that would require two state agencies to determine whether lumber treated with chromated copper arsenate causes substantial harm to human health or the environment. If it's found to be harmful, the agencies then would propose rules for restricting its use.
The initial provision, in the Senate version of the budget bill, would have imposed a ban on all state purchases of arsenic-treated lumber.
"In the last decade, we've learned so much more about arsenic. It's much more carcinogenic than anyone previously realized," said Rene Sharp, lead writer of a report released in May by the Environmental Working Group and Healthy Building Network titled "Poisoned Playgrounds: Arsenic in Pressure-Treated Wood."
Founded in 1993, the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group offers information and policy analysis to environmental organizations, other public interest groups and policy makers. Its major source of funding is foundation grants. The Healthy Building Network advocates the use of safer, more ecologically sensitive building materials.
Report calls for ban
Arsenic, a naturally occurring element, is found in groundwater and some foods. But it is listed as a known human carcinogen by the EPA and the World Health Organization and has been linked to several cancers, including those of the skin, bladder and lungs.
New evidence suggests it may increase the risk of kidney and liver cancers and other illnesses, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes, Sharp said.
Citing numerous studies, "Poisoned Playgrounds" says potentially hazardous amounts of arsenic are leaching out of pressure-treated lumber, "where it may be ingested or absorbed by people or animals, or may contaminate water sources or soil beneath the wood."
The report cites an analysis by the University of Florida finding that, in some cases, the lifetime increased risk of cancer for children regularly touching pressure-treated wood was as high as 1 in 1,000, "a thousand times the risk deemed acceptable for pesticides under federal law."
Federal standards for most carcinogens in drinking water are set to limit cancer risks to 1 in 1 million.
"Poison Playgrounds" calls on the Bush administration to suspend the use of chromated copper arsenate as a pesticide and ban its use in consumer products. A petition from the two groups in May prompted the Consumer Product Safety Commission to consider a ban on chromated copper arsenate in children's play equipment.
Findings called exaggerated
Mel Pine, a spokesman for the American Wood Preservers Institute in Fairfax, Va., called the report "irresponsible," saying it cites data out of context and exaggerates findings.
He said science isn't clear on whether arsenate is just as dangerous as arsenic. And, he points out, arsenic-free alternatives - including lumber treated with copper-laden preservatives and wood plastic composites - have drawbacks of their own and are significantly more expensive for consumers.
"You have to start from a base that no child has ever gotten sick from playing on a play set. No peer-reviewed medical journal has ever shown anyone has been harmed," Pine said.
"These are all probability exercises," he said of statistics on increased cancer risks.
Christopher Teaf, a Florida State University toxicologist who analyzed the research as a consultant for the Wood Preservers Institute, insists the risks from exposure to pressure-treated wood are negligible.
"If you look at the frequency and the duration of exposure . . . it simply does not rise to the level of toxicological significance," he said.
But Steve Roberts, a toxicologist at the University of Florida at Gainesville, said there's too much uncertainty to make that assertion.
"There's a lot we don't understand about the dose of arsenic one could get," said Roberts, who like Teaf, analyzed the research, but for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
"There may be arsenic on the surface of the wood. But the question is, how much do you get on your hands? How much winds up in the mouth?"
The bottom line, Roberts said, is that the data "frankly aren't very good."
"Anyone can take the data and make them say what they want."
