Utica Razes Playground Equipment

Arsenic-treated wood used at the district's schools may pose cancer risk

By Gene Schabath
March 27th, 2005
Source: The Detroit News

Utica Community Schools is removing playground equipment at 10 elementary schools as a precaution because the wood has been treated with a chemical linked to cancer.

The district, one of the state's largest, says it's getting ahead of a state bill under consideration that would require districts to post warnings about the dangers of arsenic-treated wood. The warning would include a health advisory urging children to wash their hands after playing.

Prolonged exposure to the chemical, chromated copper arsenate, has been linked to lung and stomach cancer.

Tests conducted on the Utica playground equipment were inconclusive on whether there was a health risk, but school officials weren't taking any chances and decided to have district employees tear down the wooden structures. They gradually will be replaced with plastic equipment.

"We've been evaluating what we had on the playgrounds and decided it was time to act," said Mark Davey, an assistant superintendent at Utica Schools. "We want to get this done before spring" when children typically start using the equipment.

Sterling Heights resident John Genron applauded the district for removing the questionable equipment. Genron's grandson, Steven Konopka, 6, plays on the wooden bars at nearby Havel Elementary School on Schoenherr.

"If it's poisonous, they should tear it down," Genron said.

The city of Southfield got rid of similar playground equipment at two city parks in 2003 because of the cancer risk and replaced it with durable polymer-steel equipment.

Chromated copper arsenate is a preservative that has been used since the 1940s to protect wooden playground equipment, backyard jungle gyms, decks and fences from rotting because of bugs and microscopic forms of life.

Health agencies had raised concerns several years ago about the preservative, and that prompted manufacturers to stop producing it in late 2003. At the same time, two federal agencies studied the issue and came up with a preliminary warning that exposure to the arsenic-based preservative could add to the risk of cancer over a lifetime.

"What we found is that there was a natural tendency for hand-to-mouth exposure of CCA (chromated copper arsenate) to children that could be put into the body and could lead to an increased cancer risk," said Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission in Bethesda, Md.

Wolfson said problems occur because the preservative has a tendency to leak from the wood.

"And then kids grab the wood and bars on playground equipment, and they get the CCA on their hands and put their hands into the mouth," Wolfson said. "Add the playground exposure to other contributing factors and there is an increased risk over the course of a lifetime."

The health risk is the reason state Rep. Chris Kolb, D-Ann Arbor, introduced legislation that would require school districts to post the warnings.

"One of our goals is to make people aware of the issue, or at least help to reduce the risk of hand-to-mouth contact," Kolb said.

Kolb's bill would require that signs be posted on the equipment that it is treated with CCA along with an advisory to wash hands, especially before consuming foods or drinks.

The Consumer Product Safety commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are conducting a study that will give guidelines for safe sealants that can be used on wood decks and play equipment. The study is expected to be done this fall, Wolfson said.

"There are millions and millions of decks and playground (equipment) out there, and we are not saying tear them down," Wolfson said. "What we want to say is there is this kind of (safe) sealant and you can use this many times a year, and that will lower the cancer risk."

State Rep. Steve Bieda, D-Warren, a co-sponsor of the bill, said it was wise for Utica to dismantle the playground structures.

"It's a good, smart thing to do...you're dealing with children's safety," Bieda said. "I have heard of some other districts doing the same thing. But I don't think most districts are aware there is a health risk."