[CPEO-BIF] "Arsenic in Hurricane Katrina wood debris"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Arsenic in Hurricane Katrina wood debris
Treated lumber from houses and other structures destroyed by the 
hurricane poses a hazardous waste disposal problem.

ERIKA ENGELHAUPT
Environmental Science & Technology
January 24, 2007

Hurricane Katrina left behind an estimated 55 million cubic meters (m3) 
of tangled debris in Louisiana and Mississippi—enough to cover 150 
football fields piled 15 meters high. To add to the disposal problem, 
much of the lumber in those piles contains arsenic, a known carcinogen.
Katrina debris

The arsenic comes from chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treatments that 
were applied to wood to protect it against termites and decay, two big 
problems in the steamy southeastern U.S. that made the pesticide very 
popular until recently. To sort the good wood from the bad, a team of 
researchers led by Helena Solo-Gabriele of the University of Miami used 
handheld X-ray fluorescence devices to make on-the-ground measurements 
of arsenic in the New Orleans debris. The results were published today 
on ES&T’s Research ASAP website (DOI: 10.1021/es0622812).

The team sampled more than 200 pieces of lumber at seven sites in New 
Orleans, including the hard-hit Ninth Ward neighborhood, where piles of 
housing still remain untouched. From their measurements in New Orleans, 
they estimate that in total, Katrina debris in Mississippi and Louisiana 
contained about 1740 metric tons of arsenic from treated wood.

...

For the entire article and a link to the study, see
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2007/jan/science/ee_katrina.html

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org

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