November 19,2003

It has often been said that arsenic treated CCA wood presents a toxic hazard from the cradle to the grave - from its beginnings in China where arsenic is mined and imported into the United States to create the CCA formula used in treated wood, to its use in treated wood products in parks, playgrounds and backyards, to its grave- the local landfill nearest you. As the "phase-down" of CCA treated wood nears its advent next month, the "graveside" issues surrounding CCA wood are now leaching to the surface, creating problems as troublesome as the arsenic in the wood itself.

These issues were the primary focus of the CCA Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting held in Orlando yesterday. In attendance were Florida DEP members, headed by Bill Hinkley, along with university scientists including Dr. Tim Townsend and Dr. Helena Solo-Gabrielle, as well as county solid waste officials, landfill operators, attorneys and other interested parties. At issue were the topics of toxic arsenic leachate in Florida landfills, arsenic in landscaping mulch, and how to handle the anticipated huge influx of arsenic-treated wood that is projected to arrive at landfills statewide and is expected to peak in 2030.

The discussions brought to mind the 70's acronym NIMBY- Not in My Back Yard- as landfill operators told regulators how they planned to start refusing CCA treated wood at their Construction and Demolition (C&D) landfills. The root problem is the arsenic that leaches from the wood, which causes the landfill monitoring wells to fail their groundwater contamination tests. "Let's face it", Hinkley declared at one point, "there's plenty of arsenic coming out of the wood - it leaches." And the DEP recognizes that the "primary source of arsenic since the 1970s is from CCA". In fact, in tests run by the Florida Center for Solid & Hazardous Waste Management (FCSHWM), as much as 47% of the arsenic leached from the wood they tested in landfill simulation tests. And, the arsenic continues to leach out for quite a long time, rather than decreasing as some might think.

This arsenic leaching from CCA treated wood is creating a gigantic headache for both the landfill operators, who have to pay for expensive testing and remediation efforts when their groundwater contaminant levels exceed state or federal guidelines, as well as for the regulators who have to monitor and enforce these regulations. "We have some serious concerns about arsenic leaching in landfills in Florida", Hinkley reminded the audience, "and in some cases, [contaminated] leachate is being hauled hundreds of miles" - hauled to facilities that can treat and dispose of the arsenic-contaminated fluid. At present, two-thirds of all Florida landfill leachate exceeds the upcoming 10 ug/L (10 ppb) Federal standard for drinking water contaminants. Almost 20% of these landfills exceed the current 50 ug/L (50 ppb) drinking water standard for arsenic.

Moreover, a new compilation of test data from landfills statewide shows the average concentration of arsenic in landfill leachate is 32 ug/L (32 ppb). The potential for contamination from CCA is such a large problem that Florida DEP officials admit that, "we're not looking to solve the issues right now, we are only looking to define the issues."

Recent concerns about arsenic in landscaping mulch were also discussed in the meeting. Testing of bags of mulch purchased at random locations statewide by the Florida Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management revealed a disturbing fact - 50% of the bags of colored mulch tested positive for arsenic indicating the presence of recycled CCA wood in the mulch.

Arsenic in mulch became front page news this year when a couple from Key Largo were diagnosed with arsenic poisoning after working with a truckload of colored mulch purchased from a major hardware chain. Their symptoms including partial paralysis - a classic symptom of arsenic poisoning - and their blood tests confirmed this. The source turned out to be the mulch they purchased for their yard.

As a result of this newfound arsenic hazard, Home Depot now requires their mulch vendors to certify that their mulch does not contain CCA wood, and they apparently even do spot testing of the mulch they're sold. There is a certain irony in this, that arsenic from recycled CCA wood is unacceptable in landscaping mulch, but this same standard does not apply to the CCA wood itself, which is still readily available at Home Depot and other lumber stores throughout Florida. As a result of this new test data, consumers are well advised to avoid colored mulch, since 6 out of 13 samples tested positive for arsenic, and all of the samples with arsenic also contained pieces of plywood, indicating the presence of recycled wood in the mulch.

Fortunately, many of the C&D landfill operators spoke up about their own efforts to keep CCA wood out of their recycled wood piles, even pointing out that they no longer accept CCA wood in their landfills. They now screen dumpster loads and turn away large loads of CCA wood to the Class I lined landfills.

Keeping CCA out of their landfills is such a concern that landfill owners are now exploring new sorting technologies to help them sort out old CCA treated wood from untreated lumber and other forms of wood, thereby minimizing the amount of arsenic in their facilities. Some of the technologies discussed included chemical staining solutions, arsenic test swab kits, laser spectroscopy units and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) test equipment. These later XRF units seemed to be the most effective and are now available as handheld electronic testers, but the price is still astronomical, running $30,000 each. Also, small handheld units are not practical for high volume operations where hundreds of boards must be sorted each day.

However, testing and sorting is key to the success of the landfill operators, particularly those with C&D landfills. To do otherwise means failing the required regulatory tests, which in turn means paying for additional environmental penalties, testing fees and remediation expenses. Redirecting the CCA wood to Class I lined landfills nearly eliminates the problem at the front. Several operators said that they were now rejecting CCA wood, or would be in the near future. Bill Hinkley added that "we're concentrating the arsenic in 70 to 100 hot spots [the landfills] all over the state."

Consumer and businesses can soon expect that only Class I lined landfills will accept their disposed arsenic treated wood, resulting in higher disposal fees for that throw-away playground set, picnic table, porch, pergola or pier.

In spite of the advances in sorting technologies and the new test data available, CCA disposal is still a Matterhorn of a problem. As we reported from the last CCA TAG meeting, calculations show that a "mountain" of CCA will be disposed of in Florida in the near future, reaching a peak of 32 million cubic feet by 2012 before beginning to taper off, even in spite of the upcoming ban on sales of residential CCA wood. To get a sense of the scale of this problem, consider that the cumulative amount of arsenic introduced into Florida by sales and production of CCA treated wood over the past 30 years is estimated at 31,000 metric tons. Last year, Dr. Solo-Gabrielle calculated that this amount of arsenic would pollute enough water to fill 590 Lake Okeechobees!

Solutions to the problem are equally insurmountable. Right now, the options for disposal of CCA wood are bury it or burn it. Burning it means sending the arsenic-treated wood to a Waste-to-Energy (WTE) facility, where a high-temperature furnace converts the wood into energy. Unfortunately, burning CCA wood immediately converts the trivalent chromium, (one of the components of CCA) into hexavalent chromium, the toxic compound made infamous by the movie Erin Brockovich. To prevent widespread pollution, scrubbers in the smokestacks are required to remove the toxic arsenic, hexavalent chromium and other pollutants.

Other solutions, such as biochemical extraction of the heavy metals from the wood, are just too costly.

Another irony of the CCA disposal problem is that the CCA wood at the construction landfills is being carefully sorted out of the waste stream and trucked to a nearby Class I lined landfills, where it is promptly mixed back in with the rest of the construction debris and garbage. No effort is made to keep the presorted CCA waste wood sorted again at its new home, as this would concentrate the arsenic in one spot, which would trigger higher-than-acceptable arsenic levels in nearby test wells and a regulatory violation.

Who pays for this gigantic environmental problem? Ultimately, the taxpayers do, in the form of higher tipping fees at landfills and higher state and federal taxes. If C&D landfills go into bankruptcy because of this problem, the state or Federal governments end up footing the bill for the cleanup, funded by our tax dollars. Our children and our children's children will end up with the bill for this miracle wood product that lasts and lasts. As we learned yesterday, CCA will be an environmental disposal problem that lasts and lasts, too.

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By: Joe Prager
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