Mold in homes

[Blind groper]

MiM

I was looking to find something that might indicate degree of hazard. That is what I found. Believe it or not, I was not cherry picking. I just looked through rather a long list of papers for one that reflected on human health and copied their conclusion. It was the first paper on human health I saw, and the only one to date. I checked several other papers, but they were not really about health and safety (more about disposal strategies). If you want to make a more thorough search, feel free.

[MiM]

Groper

Well, moving the goalposts then, as what I originally reacted to was your claims that the wood doesn't release salts in any amounts that can have environmental impact (remember my pictures?).

[Blind groper]

To MiM

On leaching of toxicant.

Your photos really are weird to me, because that is most definitely not how CCA vacuum pressure treated timber behaves in my experience. Indeed, if that amount of preservative leaked out, then it would not do a terribly good job of preserving the wood.

Are you sure the pole is CCA vacuum pressure treated? Not creosote or some other preservative? I have worked with the New Zealand Forest Research Institute, with their wood preservation group, who have had CCA treated stakes of timber stuck in the ground in a field experiment for 30 years. Leaching is absolutely negligible, and many of those sticks of wood are pristine after 30 years.

[MiM]

I cannot be a 100% sure about that pole, but the sources I have found says that CCA vacuum pressure is what was used for those poles during the time that pole appeared there, it also has the green tint normally associated with CCA (although my understanding is that only tells there is copper in it). So it is a bit more than just highly likely. Your conclusion that CCA leakage would hamper the preservative function is not well founded. Much possibly that pole has just gotten out there when "too wet", or something and leaked only the excess amount. Furthermore, in those papers I linked to there are several that mention leakage and observable effects on biota from it, so it shoudn't be that impossible that an effect might be seen.

I can make survey of the surroundings of similar poles in the area, to look for visible effects, if you wish. But you have to wait till we get summer up here.

[Blind groper]

Well MiM

As I said, my experience is here in NZ with radiata pine, and things might be different in your neck of the woods. But if some company CCA treated a pole here, and it leaked that much, they would be considered incompetent in the extreme. There are, of course, other copper based preservatives, like copper naphthenate, and copper-8-quinolinolate.

Anyway, without more data, I cannot really make a definitive statement.