Finnish electricity poles are again being treated with creosote to retard rotting

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Creosote, the most widely used wood preservative today, has made a comeback on power lines in Finland.
      According to a statement by the Finnish Energy Industries, some 100,000 new wooden electricity distribution poles are set up mainly outside cities every year. Half of them have been treated with creosote to prevent rotting.
     
Electricians who are exposed to creosote while climbing up the impregnated wooden poles say that the use of this wood preservative should be prohibited. They complain that creosote may cause them health problems, such as a rash, nausea, and headaches.
      In Sweden, creosote is the most common impregnant on wooden poles, but the Swedish electricians do not have to mount the poles as there are ladder trucks available.
     
Creosote contains a palette of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are carcinogenic chemical compounds.
      Creosote, a distillate from pure coal tar, has been used for wood treatment in Finland for more than 100 years.
      The substance has also been used as an insulating material. When the old cargo warehouses owned by the Finnish railway company VR were demolished, at least part of the bricks were found to contain creosote. For security reasons, the buyer of the bricks was entitled to cancel the deal.
     
In the 1950s creosote was replaced by another chemical wood preservative CCA, containing chromium, copper, and arsenic. However, CCA was banned by the European Union in 2006.
      Today, there are some 12 million electricity poles in Finland, and nearly 2 million of them have reportedly been treated with creosote.
      The EU is currently pondering whether it might be necessary to ban the use of creosote in the same fashion as chromated copper arsenate. In 2003 the European Union outlawed the material for amateur and unlicensed professional use.


Links:
  Finnish Energy Industries
  Creosote (Wikipedia)

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