Wood preservation facilities, pentachlorophenol thermal: chapter F-10


10. Environmental and Workplace Monitoring

10.1 Baseline Environmental Evaluation

PCP has been detected in snowpack, water, landfill leachates, sewage effluents, sediments, and aquatic and terrestrial organisms (2, 11). There are many suspected sources of PCP releases. These include disposal areas for various commercial formulations used historically as slimicides and fungicides; storage areas for PCP-treated products (including the former process of lumber dipping or spraying with aqueous solutions of chlorophenates for sapstain control); accidental or uncontrolled process releases from wood preservation facilities; and chlorinated wastewaters, especially those from pulp and paper mills and municipal sewage treatment plants (11).

PCP is not a natural compound, and its environmental background level should be “zero.” However, anthropogenic sources have resulted in trace concentrations even in remote areas. For example, levels of 0.003 mg/L to 23 mg/L have been detected in many tributaries and bays of each of the Great Lakes. Supposedly remote areas have frequently shown levels of 0.01 mg/L. A survey of the Fraser River showed PCP concentrations ranging from 0.002 to 0.0037 mg/L in waters sampled upstream of industrial areas (10). The reported trace concentrations illustrate the high degree of detection capability, i.e., to a fraction of one-billionth of a gram of PCP in a litre of water. These concentrations are much lower than concentrations that have been found to affect aquatic biota or human health (11). Restrictions on PCP use implemented during the early 1980s, as well as the cessation of chlorophenate uses for antisapstain treatments, may have had a positive impact on the current levels of PCP in the Canadian environment.

10.2 Environmental Monitoring

A possibility of PCP-contaminated ground and runoff from treated wood storage areas must be acknowledged. Even if PCP has low bioaccumulation tendency and persistence in the environment, its effect on the environment can have great consequence. Close monitoring studies (such as surface water discharges, groundwater and soil contamination) are recommended to detect and properly assess the degree of such potential toxic releases.

10.3 Workplace Exposure Monitoring

Workplace monitoring generally falls under provincial jurisdiction. Worker health programs should be developed with provincial and/or local regulatory agencies in consultation with a provincial workers’ compensation board and/or department of labour and/or industrial physician/industrial hygienist.

The appropriate components of a site and worker exposure monitoring program are contained in Section 10.2 of Part I, Chapter A - General Recommendations for All Wood Preservatives: Table 25 - Recommended Routine Environmental Monitoring and Table 26 - Recommended Routine Workplace Monitoring.

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