Interim report on the fate of wood preservatives in soils adjacent to in-service utility poles in the United States

Technical Report · Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1995

OSTI ID:95216

Taylor, B B ^[1]; Ripp, J ^[2]; Sims, R C ^[3]; Ladwig, K ^[4]

---

1. META Environmental, Inc., Watertown, MA (United States)
2. Atlantic Environmental Services, Inc., Colchester, CT (United States)
3. Utah State Univ., Logan, UT (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
4. Science and Technology Management, Inc., Brookfield, WI (United States)

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is studying the environmental impact of preservatives associated with in-service utility poles. As part of this endeavor, two EPRI contractors, META Environmental, Inc. (META) and Atlantic Environmental Services, Inc. (Atlantic), have collected soil samples from around wood utility poles nationwide, for various chemical and physical analyses. This report covers the results for 107 pole sites in the US. These pole sites included a range of preservative types, soil types, wood types, pole sizes, and in-service ages. The poles in this study were preserved with one of two types of preservative: pentachlorophenol (PCP) or creosote. Approximately 40 to 50 soil samples were collected from each wood pole site in this study. The soil samples collected from the pole sites were analyzed for chlorinated phenols and total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) if the pole was preserved with PCP, or for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) if the pole was preserved with creosote. The soil samples were also analyzed for physical/chemical parameters, such as pH, total organic carbon (TOC), and cationic exchange capacity (CEC). Additional samples were used in studies to determine biological degradation rates, and soil-water distribution and retardation coefficients of PCP in site soils. Methods of analysis followed standard EPA and ASTM methods, with some modifications in the chemical analyses to enable the efficient processing of many samples with sufficiently low detection limits for this study. All chemical, physical, and site-specific data were stored in a relational computer database.

• Research Organization: Electric Power Research Inst. (EPRI), Palo Alto, CA (United States); META Environmental, Inc., Watertown, MA (United States); Atlantic Environmental Services, Inc., Colchester, CT (United States); Utah State Univ., Logan, UT (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Science and Technology Management, Inc., Brookfield, WI (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 95216
• Report Number(s): EPRI-TR-104968; TRN: 95:018642
• Resource Relation: Other Information: PBD: Jun 1995
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
SOILS
LAND POLLUTION
CHLORINATED AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
CREOSOTE
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS
POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS
MONITORING
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
ION EXCHANGE
COMPILED DATA
DATA ACQUISITION