Healthy
Building Network
Bob Dole & The White
House Pressuring EPA to
Approve Human Carcinogen For
Wood Treatment
EPA
NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU - AGAIN
Urge
them to Deny the Registration of ACC
Thanks to your efforts in October, the EPA’s attempt to rush into approving a registration for wood treated with Acid Copper Chromate (ACC) was thwarted. Now the industry is back and this time they have hired Bob Dole as their lobbyist. With his help, the White House has started to pressure the EPA to grant the registration of the chromium 6 based treatment even though the Agency has acknowledged it lacks data to prove the chemical does not pose a threat to human health and environment.
The EPA needs to hear from you, again. The EPA is accepting comments on this issue through December 26, 2003. Please contact EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt immediately and urge him to deny the registration of this cancer causing wood treatment chemical. You can leave a message for Administrator Leavitt:
· via fax at 202-501-1450
·
by email at Leavitt.michael@epa.gov
·
by phone at 202-564-4700
Together, we achieved a tremendous victory when EPA and the wood treatment industry orchestrated a voluntary phase-out of the arsenic-based wood treatment chemical, CCA. Registering ACC would undermine this progress.
By approving the use of ACC, the EPA is allowing for the use of 100 million pounds of chrome 6 annually. Ironically, in its press release lauding its decision to ban CCA, the EPA proudly announced that the decision would also result in the elimination of “the use of 64 million pounds of hexavalent chromium” a year.
Our children are just as vulnerable to cancer-causing chromium leaching from playground equipment and picnic tables as they are to arsenic. Safer alternatives exit. Most of the industry has already converted manufacturing and treatment processes to offer consumers a safer product. By granting the ACC registration, the EPA is rewarding the bad players in the wood treatment industry who seem to be more concerned about their profits than they are about our children’s health.
For more information, contact Niaz Dorry with the Healthy Building Network at
978-281-6934 or niazdorry@earthlink.net.