Word: playground
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...York, Washington and Indiana filed a class action against the industry and some retailers, hoping to force them to pay for sealing existing structures built with CCA and cleaning up contaminated sites. Such legal sword rattling may be having an effect. Last week PlayNation, a Georgia-based maker of playground equipment, announced that it will immediately switch to nonarsenic-based preservatives. According to several sources, the industry as a whole could make such a change at a cost of just $40,000 per treatment plant. Pine won't speculate on whether the industry will consider making the switch, though...
Consumers can help shape that market by voting with their wallets. In the meantime, activists are launching a nationwide campaign to encourage testing of playground equipment for arsenic. Next week the Consumer Product Safety Commission will begin a new study to assess the arsenic risk kids face in playgrounds, and the EPA plans similar investigations in the fall. The EPA is also reviewing more than 300 pesticides (including the arsenic in CCA) to decide whether it will continue to approve their use. With the current flap over CCA, there is a fair chance arsenic won't make...
Whatever CCA's ultimate fate, the existing problem will probably be with us for a long time. Even when a playground is torn down, the wood must still be disposed of--not an easy thing to do. Dumping it in an unlined landfill allows arsenic to seep underground. Mulching it scatters CCA on the surface. And burning it fills the air with toxic smoke. Leaving the structures to disintegrate on their own could take a while. CCA is such an effective preservative that those pressure-treated wooden forts and castles might still be standing a generation from now. In retrospect...
...underground storage facility could eventually leak, contaminating nearby groundwater. They have protested with lawsuits, letter-writing campaigns and public demonstrations near the site in Nevada where nuclear devices were once exploded. Yet they have been powerless to block the project. Nevada has long been the Federal Government's atomic playground (928 nuclear bombs were detonated at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 to 1992), and the state's politicians haven't had any clout in Washington...
Along with hundreds of other White River trails, Red Creek is endangered--or close to being saved, depending on how you look at it. The 2.3 million-acre White River National Forest is Colorado's biggest playground, encompassing everything from the popular resorts of Vail and Aspen to alpine meadows populated only by elk. This year 31 million people are expected to visit, up 10% from just four years ago, fed by Colorado's booming popularity. Every 15 years the U.S. Forest Service must create a new land-use plan for the region, and the draft released...