Fact or Fiction about C.C.A

9. FACT or FICTION ABOUT C.C.A.

Posted with permission of the publisher.

Reprinted from the November/December 2003 Professional Deck Builder Magazine. © 2003 Professional Deck Builder Magazine, 2336 Wisteria Drive, Suite 240, Snellville, GA 30078. (678) 344-6283, www.DeckMagazine.com

S P E C I A L R E P O R T     By Anne W. West

The CCA Story

Fact vs. Fiction

Approved for Accuracy by the EPA, Washington, D.C.

Starting December 31, 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will no longer allow chromated copper arsenate (CCA) products to be used to treat wood intended for most residential settings.  CCA-treated wood will remain available for industrial and marine applications (see sidebar). And, lumber dealers and retail outlets are free to sell existing inventory of CCA-treated wood after December 31, 2003, for residential use if appropriate end tags and consumer safety information sheets are provided with the product.

The change is the result of a voluntary withdrawal by the wood preservative manufacturers – Arch Wood Protection, Inc., Chemical Specialties, Inc., and Osmose, Inc. – who have agreed to transition to the manufacture of a new generation of wood preservatives for use in non-industrial treated wood products. Announced by EPA on February 12, 2002, the withdrawal is unfortunately fraught with misinformation and rumors about CCA, the new preservatives, and the future of treated wood.

Does this withdrawal mean treated wood will no longer be available? Does it mean deck and dock builders must learn to work with a new product? Does it mean consumers should replace decks, docks, and other structures built with CCA-treated wood? The answer to these and many other questions about treated wood is a resounding, “No!” 

Voluntary Withdrawal

For more than 70 years, CCA-treated wood has been used in a variety of residential structures including decks, docks, gazebos, fences, play structures, walkways, picnic tables, and patios. Although CCA contains arsenic, years of use and performance along with scientific studies has shown that CCA treated wood is effective, economical, and safe when used as recommended. However, since 2001, media attention and policy debate have drawn attention to new standards for arsenic in drinking water and to the rate at which arsenic leaches from CCA-treated products.

Arsenic is a chemical element that occurs naturally in rocks, soil, water, air, plants, and animals. In its natural environment, arsenic binds to other molecules and does not travel very far, although it can be released into the environment through natural occurrences such as volcanic eruptions, erosion of rocks, and forest fires, or through human actions such as mining. Arsenic is a known carcinogen at very low levels.

According to EPA, about 90 percent of industrial arsenic in the United States is used as wood preservative, and it is also used in paints, dyes, metals, and semiconductors. EPA has “not concluded that CCA-treated wood poses any unreasonable risk to the public or the environment,” although the agency received over 8,000 pages of comments on CCA and is continuing their risk assessment of the product. In a move EPA called “responsible action,” the wood preservative manufacturers voluntarily agreed to withdraw use of CCA for certain applications.

Many in the industry credit negative media coverage and scare tactics by environmentalists as the driving forces behind the withdrawal. “This was a voluntary label withdrawal, not a ban on using CCA, driven by the media attention,” stressed Al Heberer, national marketing manager, Osmose, Inc., Griffin, Georgia. “When the American Institute of Architects (AIA) won’t spec your product because of consumer concerns and perceptions and people are scared of your product, it becomes an image problem.”

Experts say the transition to new lines of non-arsenic-based preservatives may be slower than anticipated and there will likely be a mass change-over to these new products after December 31, 2003. “I thought we would be about 65 percent converted to new products at this point, but we are still a CCA treating industry,” said Dave Mason, director of treated markets, Southern Forest Products Association, Kenner, Louisiana, “but only about 15 percent of the industry has converted.” Mason and others agree that the transition will be smooth and that wood treated with the new preservatives will be readily available after the first of the year. In fact, it is already available through some lumber yards.

New Generation Preservatives

The voluntary withdrawal of CCA has brought on a new breed of non-arsenic based preservatives that are used to treat wood. The withdrawal could mean a new interest in untreated wood such as cedar and redwood and non-wood materials such as plastics, metal, and composite materials. Although referred to as “next generation” or “new generation” preservatives, these products have

been in use for more than a decade, primarily throughout Europe and Asia. The two primary preservatives for exterior use are alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ) and copper azole (CBA). For interior applications, wood is treated with sodium borates (SBX). (see sidebar)

Arch Wood Protection, Inc., offers its patented preservative, a formulation of copper azole. Copper, derived from recycled sources, is the principal active ingredient, protecting against termites and fungal decay. Protection against copper-tolerant fungi is provided by an organic azole that is also used to protect many of the foods we eat such as fruit, peanuts, and wheat. This formulation makes the wood useless as a food source for termites and fungi, while maintaining an attractive, clean, and odorless end product. “In terms of effectiveness of product, we have 60 years of actual testing with CCA, and in accelerated testing side-by-side the new products are holding up as well as CCA,” said Huck DeVenzio, manager marketing communication, Arch Treatment Technologies, Atlanta. “We have confidence to put the same lifetime warranty on the new product.”

ACQ is the world’s leading new generation preservative, available through Chemical Specialties, Inc., and Osmose. ACQ’s main ingredient is 100 percent recycled copper, which is combined with a natural base of alkaline and quaternary, (also known as quat), a fungicide. “Consumers will continue to see a very reliable and safe product in ACQ treated wood and it will perform to their expectations, just as CCA did,” added Dave Fowlie, vice president sales and business development, Chemical Specialties, Inc., Charlotte, North Carolina. “With ACQ, you get the same mold inhibitor that we used with CCA treated wood and the added benefit of an additional inhibitor in quat.”

“Both preservatives are excellent and have the same good features as CCA-treated wood, so customers won’t be able to tell them apart,” said Heberer. “Most likely you’ll go into a lumber yard and see products from several different treaters, just as we did with CCA-treated products.”

Other chemicals will be coming onto the market in the future, continuing to make treated wood a good alternative for building. “With any change there are bumps in the road,” said Connie Welch, branch chief, EPA, Washington. “The [chemical] alternatives have been available for quite some time and it is likely that new alternatives will become available in the near future.”

Rumors Abound

Industry experts agree that the biggest challenge with the CCA issue is the multitude of rumors and misinformation about the withdrawal and the future of pressure treated wood. Information is available from EPA and industry associations as well as the preservative manufacturers themselves (see sidebar). Some of the more common rumors include these items:

RUMOR:   Pressure treated wood is going away.

FACT:

Treated wood, using the new generation, non-arsenic preservatives, is still available and safe. “It’s not going away,” emphasized Welch. “Treated wood is still a viable alternative for building.” In fact, CCA-treated wood will remain available for many marine and industrial applications (see sidebar). Even decks built with non-treated wood or non-wood products will continue to require treated wood for the understructure.

RUMOR:   New generation treated wood will be cost prohibitive.

FACT:

Lumber prices fluctuate; making it difficult to predict future costs although experts expect a 15 to 30 percent price increase over traditional CCA treated wood. CCA preservatives were relatively inexpensive, while the components of the new generation preservatives are more expensive. “You have quite a capital investment on the part of the treaters as they retool their plants to use the new preservatives and those costs will find their way into the product, at least initially,” Mason pointed out. Others add that as much as 80 percent of the price of the finished product is for the wood itself.

RUMOR: Deck and dock builders must learn to use a new product.

FACT:

Builders and consumers are not likely to notice any difference in wood treated with the new preservatives. In fact, the wood handles, looks, installs, weathers, and lasts much the same as CCA-treated wood. The industry has the same recommendations for handling and disposing of wood treated with the new preservatives as it had for CCA-treated wood.

RUMOR: Wood treated with non-arsenic preservatives doesn’t last as long as CCA treated wood.

FACT:

In terms of effectiveness, the new products are holding up as well as CCA so the preservative manufacturers have confidence to put the lengthy warranties on the new products.

RUMOR: There is a fastener corrosion issue with the new preservatives.

FACT:

The preserved wood industry has always recommended using hot-dipped galvanized, stainless steel, or coated fasteners. The recommended fasteners are the same with the new preservatives. In fact, use of the prescribed fasteners is more important than ever because the new preservatives are slightly more corrosive than CCA treated wood, which is slightly more corrosive than untreated wood. Osmose even offers its own line of specially designed deck screws that come with a limited lifetime warranty.

Arch recommends hot-dipped galvanized fasteners and connectors meeting ASTM A153 and G185 respectively and 304 or 316 stainless steel for permanent wood foundations. Aluminum should not be used in direct contact with this treated wood because copper and aluminum can have a reaction and accelerate corrosion.

RUMOR: The new preservatives don’t prohibit mold.

FACT:

“The preservative manufacturers are working with wood treaters to adjust their formulations to have the proper amount of mold inhibitor in the solution mix so that the products are comparable to CCA in terms of mold propensity,” said Mason, adding that

the new preservatives seemed to attract a white, non-toxic mold that showed up very readily with the consumer and was unacceptable.

RUMOR: CCA is being removed because it is dangerous.

FACT:

The EPA has “not concluded that CCA-treated wood poses unreasonable risks to the public when used around or near their homes or from wood that remains available in stores.” The Treated Wood Council points to an analysis by the Florida Department of Health that determined “a child would have to eat a spoonful of dirt, taken from right next to a CCA treated play set, every day, for 30 years, before there would be a potential health effect.” Experts across the industry agree that many “scare tactics” have been employed to remove CCA from the marketplace, although the product has performed very well for years without any major incident or toxicity finding. In February 2003, the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, denied class action status to a lawsuit challenging the safety of CCA-treated wood and its warnings. The Court stated that the establishment of a class is unwarranted given the relatively small number of claims related to CCA-treated wood: “For instance, even in spite of the seventy year history of treated wood’s use in this country, there is no track record of cases in which plaintiffs were alleging property damage as a result of treated wood. And there is no indication that a sea of litigation over treated wood is imminent.”

RUMOR: Consumers need to remove decks or other structures built with CCA treated wood.

FACT:

There is no need to remove existing structures or the soil surrounding those areas. However, consumers who are concerned can take extra precautions by applying a penetrating coating such as oil-based, semi-transparent stains on a regular basis. Consumers should keep in mind that some “film-forming” or non-penetrating stains are not recommended for outdoor surfaces. Simple precautions like covering wooden tables before eating, regular hand washing, not allowing food to touch treated wood and not burning treated wood in a residential setting can also be taken. The precautions outlined in the consumer safety information sheet should be followed when working with CCA-treated wood. “This is a culture change for the industry that allows the continuation of a very useful building product,” said Welch. In fact, EPA credits the preservative manufacturers for coming forward in a voluntary way to undergo a conversion and retooling of their plants as quickly as possible, and giving new alternatives that provide consumers with greater choice for their building needs. EPA is currently reviewing the use of CCA-treated wood in light of the latest science and safety standards under the Agency’s re-registration program. Throughout this transition process EPA continues to proceed with a risk assessment. Through this assessment process to date, EPA has received extensive recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), a group of scientific experts, on the best approach to evaluating potential risks to children from exposure to decks and play-structures. Updates can be found at www.epa.gov.pesticides and other preservative industry web sites (see sidebar). Even with the ongoing research and evaluation, treated wood continues to be a popular building product and it will continue to be in heavy demand for use in outdoor residential settings. “Treated wood is a fantastic product, using a renewable resource that is fast growing and plentiful,” DeVenzio added. “It takes low energy to produce, has good insulation value and the preservative is made mostly of recycled materials that prolong the life of the wood, which lessens demand on forest resources.” “We are not dropping an unproven product on the American public. CCA was so good and so effective, it’s a tough act to follow,” said Heberer. “We think we do have a winner.”

Treated wood Information Sources

American Wood-Preservers Association         www.awpa.com

American Wood Preservers Institute              www.preservedwood.com

Arch Wood Protection                                 www.naturalselect.com

                                                                 www.wolmanizedwood.com

Borax                                                         www.borax.com

Chemical Specialties, Inc.                             www.treatedwood.com

Environmental Protection Agency                  www.epa.gov/pesticides

Osmose                                                      www.osmose.com/wood/usa/

Southern Pine Council                                  www.southernpine.com

Types of Wood Products Treated with CCA After December 31, 2003

After December 31, 2003, CCA may be used to treat only wood and forest products falling under the AWPA Commodity Standards set forth on the label. A comprehensive list is available from the American Wood Preservers Institute at www.preservedwood.com/news/020216ccalist.html.

• Marine building                                                 • Highway material                    • Piles                               • Agriculture, wood used on farms

• Utility Poles                                    • Posts                                                      • Poles

Section 10 - Deck estimating worksheet