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Ask Our Experts > Organic Gardening

CCA-treated wood, often called pressure-treated wood, is very common, and you are right to be concerned about it affecting your garden. The three main chemicals that can leach into your soil — copper, chromium and arsenic — are probably concentrated within a few inches of the base of your fence. Studies that analyzed the chemical content of soil inside raised beds framed with CCA-treated wood found high concentrations of arsenic in soil within 2 inches of the wood and normal levels of arsenic 2 feet away. Because wood fences have more surface from which chemicals can leach and from which they can cast shade, I suggest erring on the side of caution and allowing a 3-foot buffer between your fence and your vegetables. That way, they should be safe from contamination and from excessive shade.

In 2003, consumer pressure finally forced the lumber industry to switch to less-toxic, arsenic-free treatment alternatives. For more on this issue, search our Web site for “treated wood.”

— Barbara Pleasant, Mother Earth News contributing editor

4 Comments

  • ludwig 8/29/2008 2:00:11 AM

    I would like to strongly suggest that you forget about buying or putting up any fence with these metal treatments to them particularly Arsenic, which could cause you to: 1. develop cancer just by handling it 2. Come down with diabetes even if it never has been in your family before---this is the latest medical research on this metal which has been used in the past as an insecticide and particularly in vineyards and commonly found on farms of the past. These metals are very toxic to begin with which is why the wood was treated with them without regard to the enviromental damage that they do.

    Putting up fences that have been treated above puts these metals into the soil. If you or you have poultry, cattle et al and wild life then eats grass or vegetables ---- the metal then gets transfered to your body for which you will pay heavily for many years later after you have forgotten that you even handled any compounds containing arsenic. There it resides for most of the rest of your life doing damage to your body as it is not easily excreted. Depending on how heavy the dosage is --you will develop Diabetes (usually first) then Cancer. If it is very heavy--you either die a slow death or Cancer develops and that is the source of your unnatural death.

    Most people fail to see that life is a cycle----why is Tuna so contaminated with mercury---well Charlie the Tuna comes from American Samoa USA. When the US Navy ruled the Island---(same in Guam) they dumped mercury into the Harbor---which got into algae which got into fish and shellfish, shrimp that ate the algae that got into fish that ate the shrimp et al that then got into children and adults that ate Tuna.

    We have the same problems where Gold has been mined. Wild Salmon from Alaska from waters where Gold has been mined in the distant past should not be eaten because these fish are generally loaded with Mercury which was used to extract the gold from whatever it was in. Mercury and Gold form an instable alloy which

  • ludwig 8/29/2008 1:54:50 AM

    I would like to strongly suggest that you forget about buying or putting up any fence with these metal treatments to them particularly Arsenic, which could cause you to: 1. develop cancer just by handling it 2. Come down with diabetes even if it never has been in your family before---this is the latest medical research on this metal which has been used in the past as an insecticide and particularly in vineyards and commonly found on farms of the past. These metals are very toxic to begin with which is why the wood was treated with them without regard to the enviromental damage that they do.

    Putting up fences that have been treated above puts these metals into the soil. If you or you have poultry, cattle et al and wild life then eats grass or vegetables ---- the metal then gets transfered to your body for which you will pay heavily for many years later after you have forgotten that you even handled any compounds containing arsenic. There it resides for most of the rest of your life doing damage to your body as it is not easily exceted. Depending on how heavy the dosage is --you will develop Diabetes (usually first) then Cancer. If it is very heavy--you either die a slow death or Cancer develops and that is the source of your unnatural death.

    Most people fail to see that life is a cycle----why is Tuna so contaminated with mercury---well Charlie the Tuna comes from American Samoa USA. When the US Navy ruled the Island---(same in Guam) they dumped mercury into the Harbor---which got into algae which got into fish and shellfish, shrimp that ate the algae that got into fish that ate the shrimp et al that then got into children and adults that ate Tuna.

    We have the same problems where Gold has been mined. Wild Salmon from Alaska from waters where Gold has been mined in the distant past should not be eaten because these fish are generally loaded with Mercury which was used to extract the gold from whatever it was in. Mercury and Gold form an instable alloy which

  • Felicia Luburich 8/18/2008 7:51:41 PM

    About the garden:
    GET RID OF THE FENCE. UGH!!! Nowdays the horrid effects of those chemicals should prevent them from being sold.
    Sell that fence and use the money to put up an electric fence and two rows of fast growing evergreens, such as Arborvitae. If you mulch them and use libertal amounts of compost they will grow like weeds.
    You can also dig a narrow trench and install a barrier ASAP to prevent futher leaching of the chemicals toward your planned garden and into the ground water.
    If you keep a few chickens you can feed them all the vegetable trash from your klitchen, including banana peels and have eggs ( and chickens if you keep a rooster and let one or two hens keep their eggs) and plenty of poo for your trees and garden.
    Good luck.

  • Joe Williams 8/14/2008 6:58:29 AM

    If one is leary of planting to close to a treated (CCA-A)fence.....then either remove the fence or move the garden.

    To much analyzing here...first and foremost use common sense!

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