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comment EPA Limits Wood Preservative ACC to Commercial Uses
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided not to allow the use of acid copper chromate (ACC) as a wood preservative for lumber in residential applications such as decks, playgrounds, and picnic tables. ACC, which contains the known carcinogen hexavalent chromium, will continue to be allowed for commercial uses such as marine pilings and highway structures.
“The U.S. continues to set the gold standard for pesticide safety,” said assistant EPA administrator Jim Guilford, announcing the January 2007 ruling. “Today’s decision protects American families, workers, and the environment.” According to the EPA, the agency weighed potential problems for consumers, including the risk of cancer and skin irritation, against the “minimal benefits” represented by the product. Wood treated with ACC also needs a long holding period to allow the chemical to cure and become less harmful, a requirement the EPA deemed unlikely to happen.
The wood treatment industry has largely turned in recent years to arsenic- and chromium-free, copper-based wood preservatives, which are generally recognized as effective while being less hazardous to human health. While ACC is free from arsenic, the chromium content means that it has some of the same concerns as chromated copper arsenate (CCA), which the wood treatment industry withdrew from most residential uses in 2003.
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Dennis Morgan, president of Forest Products Research Laboratory (not to be confused with the federal government’s Forest Products Laboratory), the Washington state company behind the application, expressed disappointment while waiting for the official conclusion to the EPA’s administrative process. The EPA’s decision surprised environmental groups, which had expressed alarm just weeks earlier when the agency increased a key allowable margin for risk.
“The lingering uses of these nasty chemicals are a problem, but at least we can say that the trend is solidly positive,” said Bill Walsh of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Healthy Building Network. “It was an ill-conceived idea that no one was supporting,” he said, speculating that “the wood-treatment industry didn’t want to engage in these controversial discussions about their product anymore.” Supporting that speculation, Morgan said that Osmose, one of the principal companies in the chemical treatment business, withdrew its part of the ACC application in the month before the EPA decision.
For more information:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Pesticide Programs
www.epa.gov/pesticides/
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