Contact 5 Investigates: Poison In Your Yard

Monday May 15, 2006

Reported By: Shannon Cake
Photographer: Jim Sitton
May 15, 2006

A massive pile of trash: wooden poles,plywood, siding, wood pallet. All this construction and demolition debris could be headed for your backyard.

"I'm sure you wouldn't believe it, you would never have any idea."

From your view inside Chopper Five watch as construction debris is pulled from this pile...transferred by bulldozer to this massive grinder...and sprayed out the other end in tiny chunks--chips of wood!

Once they add a little red dye, you guessed it....this will be mulch. Ready to be spread in your backyard.

"Many environmentalists actually say this a good thing that recycling garbage, like old, unwanted construction debris and turning it into mulch, keeps it out of our bulging landfills."

But after two months of sampling and testing Contact 5 has discovered a widespread problem.If you're not careful about where you buy this stuff,you could be spreading a poison to your very doorstep.

"It's the only place that we've been exposed to arsenic."

It's a real threat to your family's health, yet the government agency charged with protecting you from this toxin, is just starting to pay attention to the problem.

"I think its obviously something people should be cautious about but what's a safe level? I really don't know what to say on that."

"How big a problem is it?"

Bob Lagasse heads the Mulch and Soil council in Manassas, Virgina. He says, "It is happening now according to the tests we have run on products in the marketplace currently."

His industry trade group, randomly tests mulch looking for high levels of cancer causing metals like arsenic.

Shannon Cake:
"In that testing...have you found high levels of arsenic in mulch here in the state of Florida?

Lagasse:
"Yes we have."

The culprit: outdoor lumber that is pressure treated with CCA. That's chromium, copper and arsenic.

It's been used for years on decks, docks and fences even childrens playgrounds because it stands up well against the elements. But a series of tests in the early 90's showed the CCA metals were leaching out of the wood, at levels high enough to cause cancer.

The lumber was pulled out of playgrounds across the country but now, it's showing up again.

In your backyard,as recycled mulch.

Victor Alverez:
"My feet were numb, my legs were numb."

Victor and Nancy alvarez started feeling strange after landscaping their home in the florida keys.

Victor Alverez:
"We were just landscaping, just like millions of people do."

Nancy Alverez:
"Pins and needles on your feet, it's just electrical sensation in your body."

Their official diagnosis: arsenic poisoning. And guess where it came from?

Nancy Alverez:
"From the mulch. They told my husband.. his neurologist said that it would take a couple of years for his nerve endings to regenerate."

Their doctor also told Victor he was so highly dosed with poison, it could have killed him.

So Contact 5 set out to track down arsenic-tainted mulch in our area.

We spent two months pulling samples from North Palm Beach, to Wellington to Boca Raton.

"This is 1a...this is 1b."

We gathered our samples at parks, private homes and businesses, like Channel 5.

Then, we went shopping and gathered more samples from bags purchased directly from retailers.

We took all of our samples for testing to Jupiter Environmental Lab. Tara Bardi is a Geologist here.

Tara Bardi:
"Arsenic is a very important issue in FL soils. It's a cancer causing agent...so it will cause cancer at too high...if you're exposed to it at too high of a level."

In fact, according to Florida's Department of Environmental Protection, the soil in residential areas should be cleaned up if arsenic levels exceed 2.1 mg/kg.

So how did our samples fair?

Nineteen out of thirty-five tested above the state cleanup limit for residential soil.

Tara Bardi:
"It was 7.1 mg/kg. When we ran another piece of wood from the same jar prior to blending them all together it was 140. We got 370 and then another piece was 3.3."

Shannon Cake:
"So this is high?"

Tara Bardi:
"It's very high. Oh yes...its extraordinary. If the Florida Department says 2.1 mg/kg is the upper limit in the State of Florida, I can't imagine that mulch with 370 would be acceptable, it wouldn't be to me."

370 was the highest level we found.

Shannon Cake:
"If your clients got back high levels of arsenic in soil or water--what would you advise them to do?

Tara Bardi:
"I'd ask them to call the Department and find out why there was so much arsenic in the mulch."

The Department she refers to is the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
PHOTOS

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PROTECT YOURSELF
If you purchased mulch that was certified by the Mulch and Soil Council, don't be alarmed. Presence will always be less than 10 ppm...and often much lower than that.
Ask your landscaper or retailer if they are using Mulch and Soil Council certified mulch.
Educate your homeowners association
If you are uncertain about your mulch, have it tested. Our lab tests cost about $18 per metal tested.
If you have high arsenic levels---ask your landscaper to remove it.

OUR RESEARCH

We found high levels of arseni
in the following zip codes:

33433,33467,33312, 33328 (2 Samples), 33414, 33484, 33401, 33458 (2 Samples)

The state recommended cleanup level for residential soil is 2.1 mk/kg.

Our mulch samples range from:

Jupiter: 3.5- 89.9
Broward:3.6-7.81
Boca Raton: 3.4- 7.81
Boynton Beach: 7.1- 370*

*Note: 370 was our highest level found in Boynton Beach

HELPFUL CONTACTS
Mulch and Soil Council
10210 Leatherleaf Ct.
Manassas, VA 20111-4245
(703) 257-0111
FAX: (703) 257-0213
info@mulchandsoilcouncil.org

Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
Southeast District Office
(561) 681-6743
Website: www.dep.state.fl.us

EPA Headquarters
(202) 272-0167
Website: www.epa.gov

Office of Attorney General
(850)-414-3300 or (866)966-7226
Website: myfloridalegal.com

Office of Governor Bush
(850) 488-7146
Website: www.flgov.com

Consumer Affairs Division
(954) 357-5350
Website: www.800helpfla.com

DEP Groundwater Protection
(850) 245-8227
Website: www.dep.state.fl.us

Senator Tom Lee (President of Florida Senate)
(850) 487-5072
Website: www.flsenate.gov

Allan G. Bense (Speaker, Florida House of Representatives)
(850) 488-1157
Website: www.myfloridahouse.gov/

Division of Statutory Revision
(850) 488-8403
Website: www.leg.state.fl.us


Richard Tedder, head of the Department's solid waste division says, " We don't have a number for mulch, we regulate soils,contaminated soils, we regulate ground water. We really don't have any health based numbers for what is a safe level of arsenic in mulch.."

Shannon Cake:
"Why not? I mean if we have it in soil and we have it in water why not mulch?

Richard Tedder:
"We regulate waste materials, and mulch is a product, so we really don't have standards for products."

Waste materials. Tedder's agency does regulate recycling facilities, but they're only concerned about the chemical levels for the materials they send to the garbage. Since mulch is bagged up and sold to you, it's seemingly exempt from those rules.

Richard Tedder:
"We can tell you whether or not that soil is above some level of what we might consider safe or if you use a product and you contaminate ground water, we have standards to say whether or not the ground water has been impacted but we just don't have standards. There are literally thousands of products, we just don't have the capability. And we're not, that's not our charge."

And while he regulates toxin levels in the dirt you lay it on his agency isn't prepared to enforce the rules for the actual mulch.

Shannon Cake:
"Levels like these, does this concern you?"

Richard Tedder:
"I think it's obviously something people should be cautious about."

"Obviously 370 is quite a bit higher than our residential number of 2.1 in soil there's no doubt about that, but what a 370 means for mulch...I'm not qualified to say."

We showed Tedder the results of our sampling.

Shannon Cake:
"Would you want your children or pets playing in..."

Tedder:
"Well...I, I, we...we would feel like it's....it's not a good idea to use CCA wood in making mulch." "I think it's reasonable to assume that there could be some health risks associated with spreading mulch all over the place---that's made from CCA wood."

And the Federal Environmental Protection Agency hinted at this topic too.

In this notice issued in January of 2004, a warning that people who "shred or chip waste CCA treated lumber into wood mulch for uses such as in landscaping applications, are not using the treated wood for its intended end use."

But like the Florida's Department, the federal government has no set arsenic limits for mulch.

Shannon Cake:
"I go back to my original question, would you let your children or your pets play in mulch or be in mulch or be around mulch that's ringing in 140, 370---even 7.1..."

Tedder, laughing:
"Well, I'd be careful about where I got my mulch."