Tleating industry targeted by pressr lawyers

A RASH of newspaper articles questioning the safety of .ClCCA pressure treated wood has the wood preserving industry up in arms.

On March I l, the St. Petersburg Times launched a series of articles, titled "The Poison in Your Back Yard." The newspaper claimed that, according to studies they funded, "pressure treated wood used to build local playgrounds, decks and picnic tables is leaking arsenic at levels far higher than the state considers safe." The articles also cited a handful of residents in different states who claimed to have been harmed by CCA.

Immediately, cities began chaining off local playgrounds and some hysterical residents called for wood structures to be demolished. Newspapers across the country began running similar articles.

The American Wood Preservers Institute quickly defended CCA's 60-year history of safe use with a public statement and a newspaper editorial by toxicologist Dr. Christopher Teaf, who recently completed three studies on health considerations of CCA treated wood.

"It would take far more arsenic in soil than what I have seen in scientific reports or the press before any threat of health effects to children might occur," Dr. Teaf wrote. "As a husband and a father of two young sons, with a playset in the backyard, I plan no changes. The product has been used safely for generations, and I have seen no reason why it shouldn't continue to be properly used in the future."

The articles coincided with the filing of a lawsuit in federal court in Miami that accuses the pressure treating industry of deceiving consumers about the dangers of their products.

The suit calls treated wood "defective and unsafe" and accuses treated wood producers and resellers of concocting a campaign of "misrepresentation, omission and halftruths" to cover up its harmful effects.

The lawyers, who reportedly have been involved in tobacco litigation, are seeking to have it certified as a class-action case. So far, their one plaintiff is Jerry Jacobs, a Dade County resident who owns a deck made of CCA treated wood.

The defendants include chemical suppliers Osmose and Arch Chemicals, leading retailers Home Depot and Lowe's, and treaters Hoover Treated Wood Products, Thomson, Ga.; Robbins Manufacturing Co., Tampa, Fl.; Wood Treaters Inc., Jacksonville, Fl.; Roy O. Martin Lumber Co., Alexandia,La., and Follen Wood Preserving Co., Jackson, Ms., and suggests others will be added later.

The list appears random considering, for example, the omission of rival chemical producer CSI and the inclusion of Roy O. Martin, which has only been using CCA for a few months.

The suit claims that all parties are responsible for any environmental or health problems because, among other things, the industry is not properly distributing warning sheets to consumers despite promises it made to federal regulators 15 years ago.

The EPA is currently reviewing CCA and considering whether to make the Consumer Information Sheets mandatory.

The suit wants the defendants to pay for removal of decks, playground sets and other structures built with CCA treated wood, clean up contaminated soils, and pay for medical monitoring and testing for people who may be at risk. The plaintiff also seeks punitive damages.

The defendants could not comment on specifics of the case, since by press time none had yet been served.

Arch Chemicals did find the suit "troubling," said spokesman Huck DeVenzio. "Certainly we are concerned, but we stand by the record and science behind CCA, and we have never shirked from independent testing of our products."