No Toxic Wood
After more than two years of review, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced yesterday that it will not allow a potentially toxic element to be used in commercial wood. That means there won't be an increased health risk at playgrounds across the country.
In June 2004, a company called Forest Products Research Laboratory petitioned the EPA to consider letting them use the preservative Acid Copper Chromate (ACC) – which contains chromium 6 – in the manufacturing of residential lumber. That lumber could then make products like playground equipment and decks. ACC would have acted as a pesticide to protect the wood from rotting.
But, here's the problem: chromium 6 is the same cancer-causing element that was at the center of the movie "Erin Brockovich." (You may recall the movie was based on a true story about a small town in California where the drinking water had allegedly been contaminated and hundreds of people got sick. Chromium 6 was linked to that contamination.)
Several organizations have also voiced concern about chromium 6. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said studies show its compounds can increase the risk of lung cancer and "ingesting large amounts of chromium 6 can cause stomach upsets and ulcers, convulsions, kidney and liver damage, and even death." The World Health Organization (WHO) concluded it was a human carcinogen. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) determined that certain chromium 6 compounds are known to cause cancer in humans. And, even the EPA has said chromium 6 in air is a human carcinogen.
In February 2002, the EPA and the wood industry reached a voluntary agreement to phase out the use of another wood preservative called Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA), which contained arsenic. ACC has no arsenic and would have filled CCA's role. But, some activists strongly opposed it.
"On the nasty scale, this is pretty nasty," executive director of the Environmental Working Group, Richard Wiles, told CBS News. Wiles says it would present a risk if you sawed, burned or put your mouth on the wood as a child might at a playground. "There are all kinds of other alternatives," he says. "Right now a copper-based component is used to treat wood and it works just fine."
Next week, on January 19, the EPA was supposed to finally let Forest Products Research Laboratory know whether or not ACC could hit the market – allowing the introduction of chromium 6.
The CBS News investigative unit called the EPA yesterday to find out the status of that decision and ask why the EPA was even considering allowing this stuff to be used with so much "unhealthy" evidence against it.
Within a few hours of calling the EPA, executive administrator Jim Gulliford announced that the EPA was legally denying the company's application to use ACC for residential use.
In a phone interview, Gulliford told CBS News that the EPA took its time to make its decision and in the end concluded "the risks associated with chromium 6 outweigh the minimal benefits." Parents, I am sure, are thankful.