A Seal Beach couple say they are now more comfortable with a toxic utility pole near their home after a high-tech collar installed by an Orange County company is preventing further leakage of toxic chemicals onto the sidewalk.
Howard Weiss, the homeowner, said he and his wife complained to the city about chemicals leaking from the pole onto the ground around the pole, located in the alley between 6th and 7th Streets.
Not only was the puddle of dark chemicals at the bottom of the pole unsightly, but potentially dangerous as well, said Weiss, because those chemicals could find their way into the groundwater supply.
According to Mrs. Weiss, “lots of kids walk by and get the chemicals from the puddle on their feet,” so they decided to act. She said they first contacted the city, who apparently reached out to Southern California Edison.
Blake Ward, the Chairman and Founder of AIRTech Innovation (Advanced Innovative Recovery Technologies, Inc.), an Orange County manufacturing company, said he understands the Weiss’ concern because the chemicals in all utility poles are extremely toxic.
Ward said his company is working with Edison to develop a solution to fix the most toxic poles.
The most abundant chemical in the poison poles, he said, is pentachlorophenal, or Penta, as it is more commonly referred to. Penta, said Ward, is the result of mixing carbolic acid and P9 crude oil to create a compound that kills fungi and termites to preserve the poles.
He said the preservative soup used in these poles is made up of 63% Penta, 16% arsenicals (copper chromium arsenate or CCA), 16% coal tar creosote, 3%, copper naphthlenate, and 1% ammonical copper arsenate or ammonical copper zinc arsenate.
Notably, he said more than .4 (4/10) pound per cubic foot of the toxic substances are injected into the poles to protect them before they are installed. That an average of 70 to 100 lbs. of preservative per pole. These chemicals slowly leach to the exterior of the pole, then down into a puddle if not insulated properly.
AIRTech co-founder, Tim Woodward, said utility companies using wooden support poles (electrical and/or telephone poles) are seeing a major issue developing because some homeowners are uncomfortable with these preservatives and pesticides leaking near their homes.
He said tests conducted by the EPA thirty years ago estimated that children exposed to soil contaminated by Penta from utility poles were 220 times more likely to develop cancer.
Woodward said Penta kills any living organism up to eight feet from the pole, and is highly toxic to birds, mammals and aquatic organisms. Moreover, he said exposure to Penta can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, and even cause cancer.
To solve this problem, Ward said AIRTech has created a proprietary, non-toxic collar, made of a specially blended foam that absorbs toxic hydrocarbons but not water, with the capability of trapping and absorbing the toxic pole chemicals before they reach the ground.
“The first step is to install a special collar to stop the preservative materials from reaching the ground,” he said, “while the second is to use natural cleaners to clear the ground areas surrounding the poles.”
AIRTech’s proprietary collar is fashioned from their non-toxic “BeBetterFoam®,” said Ward, which absorbs fourteen times its weight in toxic chemicals.
Once the collar is installed, Penta can no longer find its way to the ground because it is absorbed into the collar as it drips down the pole. He said the Seal Beach pole has been a pilot project to test the company’s proprietary technology.
Other blended, non-toxic chemicals are then used to scrub the concrete around the poles to remove the existing traces of the Penta which was leached onto the ground, said Ward.
After final installation and cleanup by the contractor, Weiss said the pole near their home “looks much better.” He said the technology installed around the pole “seems to be working.”
Given the success of the Seal Beach project, said Ward, “we are working with Edison engineers and local governments to develop a plan to neutralize all of the poles using AIRTech’s two-step solution,” said Ward.
Ideally, he said, the harmful chemicals in utility poles should be prevented from reaching the ground, especially those within blocks of the beach. “Those puddles of toxins are washed away by rain and swept right into the ocean,” said Ward.
There are more than 4 million utility poles in California and more than 150 million nationwide. Ward said the company is now working with Edison to neutralize the most problematic poles in southern California.
He said the company’s BeBetterFoam® is also being adopted in a variety of industries, including a partnership with Motion Industries to manage Disneyland’s unique hydraulic challenges when the park is operational to prevent shutdowns caused by leaks.
Ward said the company has established a hotline for concerned residents. To report a toxic pole near your home, text the keyword ‘Earth’ to 66599 on your cellphone.
