Safe Wood

**e*@aol.com**

I can understand how the gentleman from Texas may have arrived at the conclusion that using pressure-treated wood around food crops is an acceptable risk.  We all make risk assessments every day - driving a car (Toyota notwithstanding), air travel, eating raw seafood, taking pharmaceutical drugs, etc., etc. And we make the decision (informed or otherwise) to accept the risk or not.

Personally, I don't think the possibility (perhaps remote) of carcinogenic uptake in my food crops is a necessary risk when there are easy alternatives that are more sustainable with less impact on the environment.  Pressure treated lumber may be acceptable for use in the garden, but when it gets thrown out (irresponsibly) and ends up in a stream, river or lake, the risk equations change dramatically.  In fact, in these parts this lumber must be handled as a hazardous waste when removed and discarded.

I think it's best to look for a science-based answer from an Extension university.  Try this one --   http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/quickref/vegetable/treated_lumber.html

And if you want the complete (and I mean complete) story, go to Fine Gardening online.  You'll know your chromated copper arsenate and alkaline copper "quat" backwards and forwards -
www.finegardening.com/design/articles/pressure-treated-wood-in-beds.aspx 

Ellen Goff ...
still driving around SC 
in my Toyota pickup

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