News Coverage
Costs unknown for shift to arsenic-free wood
Published March 16, 2002
There is certainty that lumber treated with arsenic as a preservative will largely be a relic of the past in a couple of years. More uncertain is what costs the alternatives will bring to consumers.
A pesticide known as chromated copper arsenate, or CCA, has long been a popular wood preservative to protect against insects and rot. But last month the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a voluntary decision by the wood-treatment industry to phase out CCA for residential uses.
By January 2004, there will be no CCA products in new projects such as patios, decks, picnic tables, fences and landscaping, according to the EPA plan. There will be a transition in the meantime for wood treatment plants to convert to alternative wood preservatives that do not use arsenic.
"This transition will substantially reduce the time it could have taken to go through the traditional regulatory process," EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said in a news release announcing the transition.
The EPA concluded CCA-treated wood already in use does not pose an unreasonable risk to the public. But agency officials said that any reduction is desirable since arsenic is a known human carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent.
The activist research organization Environmental Working Group released a report last fall claiming a cancer risk. That report said that one of every 500 children who regularly play on playground equipment or decks that use the wood treated with CCA was expected to develop cancer late in life from that exposure.
Charley Rich, an estimator with Encore Custom Fence and Deck in Waco, said his company is waiting on information about what effect the removal of CCA might have.
"Our knowledge, thus far, is a little bit limited," Rich said. "We use quite a bit of it, using it on decks for substructure. We don't put it on deck boards."
Some businesses selling the CCA-treated wood are already phasing it out.
"We're looking to have everything phased out by the end of September," said Brian Liczwek, manager of The Home Depot in Waco.
Zaragosa Barbosa is owner of Austin Wholesale Decking Supply in Austin, which supplies companies such as Waco's Encore. He said his business too is phasing out CCA lumber. Much of what his store will use to replace it is wood treated with a substance known as ACQ, alkaline copper quat. Copper has been used for centuries to protect wood from bugs and rot. Quats are fungicides that attack decaying organism.
The wood treatment business is about a $4 billion a year industry. What these changes will mean to the industry and to consumers is unclear.
Since the decision to phase out CCA-treated wood was voluntary, the EPA was not required to tabulate the costs.
"There was no cost-benefit analysis done on the recent announcement," said David Bary, a spokesman for the EPA regional office in Dallas. "Action is being done voluntarily by wood treaters. It was not a regulatory decision on the part of the agency."
About 30 wood treaters belong to the Texas Forestry Association, a Lufkin-based forest products trade organization, said association executive director Ron Hufford. He said it is too early to tell what costs his association members would bear or the costs to consumers.
"A lot of it will depend on the availability of new chemicals and if it requires a new process for pressure treatment," Hufford said.
Liczwek said The Home Depot also has not received specific information on costs of alternative preservative treatments for lumber.
"Right now we haven't seen anything definite," he said. "It will cost a little more."
Barbosa said that based on the costs of ACQ-treated lumber that has been around for awhile, he thinks the alternatives will cost between 15 percent and 20 percent more. He said a 2-by-6 board treated with CCA costs 60 cents a foot. The price for alternatives could run between 69 cents and 72 cents per foot.