April 6 2002 - Canadian manufacturers will voluntarily stop using chromated copper arsenate (CCA) by December 31st, 2003, for wood destined for the residential market. Their agreement concluded with Health Canada was announced by the Ministry’s Pesticides Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) last Wednesday. It is identical to the one announced in the United States last Feb. 12.

The PMRA completed its fast-track approval of replacement products to CCA: Alkaline Copper Quaternary (ACQ) and Copper Azole.

Small quantities of arsenic and chrome, both neurotoxins and carcinogens, leach from CCA-treated wood, which is considered toxic waste in Europe. Last year, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of American president George W. Bush, closed dozens of playgrounds in that state after highly toxic concentrations of arsenic were discovered to be accumulating below wood playground equipment treated with this insecticide.

The use of this green-tinted wood will still be allowed in North America for industrial uses such as treating telephone poles.

However, CCA will no longer be used to treat wood for residential structures including playground structures, patios, picnic tables, fences, terraces or wood walkways. However, sale and use in construction of all wood treated before December 31st 2003 will be authorized after that date.

Existing structures made from treated wood will not be affected by the phase-out agreement. Experts recommend sealing this wood every two years, using an oil-based polyurethane, stain or paint.

The president of Quebec’s Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, botanist Edith Smeesters, is "extremely happy about the Canadian agreement. It finally recognizes that these products are dangerous and that it is absurd to eat off a CCA-treated wood picnic table."

But in a press release, Health Canada stressed it has not concluded that CCA-treated wood presents an unacceptable risk for the public or the environment.

The Ministry and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are continuing their re-evaluation on the toxicity of this pesticide. In December, the EPA’s scientific advisors recommended that children who regularly played on treated wood, undergo blood tests to measure how much arsenic they may have ingested by touching the wood and putting their fingers in their mouth.

There is no safe dose of arsenic, a poison clearly associated with cancer of the skin, bladder, kidneys and lungs. Children exposed to arsenic and to chrome may even develop learning disabilities and hyperactivity. "I wouldn’t be surprized", Dr Henry Peters, an expert on treated wood and Neurology Professor Emeritius at the University of Wisconsin, told us in a telephone interview. "Dogs have lost their fur and become aggressive after walking daily on new treated wood patios and probably licking their paws." Many animals have died after chewing on CCA-treated wood or eating its ashes.

The biggest danger still comes from breathing in its sawdust and especially its smoke. In Illinois, two American government employees quickly fell seriously gravely ill, with severe bleeding, after building picnic tables indoors for two days, during the winter. "As they were using power saws and working under heaters, they inhaled arsenic vapors," explained Dr Peters, who is very disappointed that industry and government didn’t sufficiently warn consumers about the product’s dangers, as they had promised to do 12 years ago. Class action suits claiming this have been launched against both American manufacturers and retailers.

By: André Fauteux

La Presse Newspaper

Montreal, Canada