Creosote Wood Preservation Facilities

Wood preservation is the pressure or thermal impregnation of chemicals into wood to a depth that will provide effective long-term resistance attack by fungi, insects, and marine borers. The chemical predominantly used in Canada for wood preservation are pentachlorophenol, creosote, and aqueous formulations of arsenic, copper, chromium or ammonia. The wood preservation process deposits or fixes these chemicals in the wood, and the toxic nature of the chemicals effectively prevents the attack of living organisms on the wood. Because the chemicals are also toxic in varying degrees to humans and aquatic organisms, their use in industry must be carefully controlled. This document is intended to provide consistent guidelines for the design and operation of wood preservation facilities in a manner that will protect workers and the environment from harmful exposure to wood preservation chemicals.

Winner of the 2013 Claire P. Holdredge Awardee for Remediation of Former Manufactured Gas Plants and Other Coal-Tar Sites. This award, first established in 1962 by the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists, is named in honor of Claire P. Holdredge, a founding member and the first President of the Association. The award is presented for a publication by an AEG Member(s) within the 5 previous years that is adjudged to be an outstanding contribution to the Engineering Geology profession. Remediation of Former Manufactured Gas Plants and Other Coal-Tar Sites is geared toward environmental professionals who want to design and implement gasworks remediation strategies that offer the greatest chance to successfully protect the public. Exploring the bases for selecting remedial alternatives to adequately address today’s environmental wounds, this compendium of essential knowledge combines historic and modern scientific data and technology with common sense and empirical lore passed down from past generations of gas professionals, a group that is now all but extinct. Most of the general population does not have a sufficient understanding of remediation needs. Unfortunately, there seems to be a similar lack of knowledge among some environmental professionals whose job it is to protect the public from the health threats associated with coal tar. Pitfalls in remediation are common and represent a significant risk to the public, especially when processes are based on inaccurate assumptions. This book sifts through the existing scholarship from around the developed world to present the necessary evaluation factors used in effective remediation. Almost encyclopedic in scope, it offers 265 separate tables with checklists, hard data facts, and associations to help readers define site-specific gas plant conditions. It also includes a plethora of photographs and historic drawings, as well as an extensive glossary that is indispensible for understanding potential and actual gas plant contamination. Useful for engineers, scientists, regulators, public officials, historians, and journalists among others, this book is intended for those who conduct remediation, as well as those involved in review and oversight. Its goal is to bring users closer to safely reclaiming land and reviving old coal gasworks sites in ways that ultimately will be sustainable for the public interest.

Contains information about 80 hazardous substances, including what each substance is, how exposure may occur and possible health effects, and medical tests available to determine exposure.

Responding to a heightened awareness of the possible adverse effect of treated wood, this book presents multidisciplinary research results and fundamental information on regulations, wood treatment alternatives, and documentation of environmental releases. It examines the impact of treated wood on water, soil, and organisms. Several chapters discuss ways to measure exposure and review various approaches to risk assessment and management. Case studies address human health effects of exposure. The book also presents state-of-the-art disposal technologies, new preservative compounds, and recent developments related to phase outs of certain treated wood products.