A plan by Gov. Jeb Bush to get the state's wood treatment plant to stop using arsenic as a preservative is running into trouble in the Florida Legislature. A plan by Gov. Jeb Bush to get the state's wood treatment plant to stop using arsenic as a preservative is running into trouble in the Florida Legislature. The state makes its own pressure-treated lumber at the plant in Raiford, using prison labor.
State agencies use it in park boardwalks, highway guardrails and other outdoor structures.
Some of the money would also help pay to clean up arsenic contamination at the plant. In the early 1990s, arsenic contamination was discovered near the plant at levels 100 times higher than state standards. Arsenic still must be cleaned from the groundwater. Bush's environmental chief, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs, says he wants to create a market for arsenic-free wood in Florida. Struhs has already declared a moratorium on CCA-treated wood in state parks.