ABSTRACT
Pentachlorophenol is consumed in large quantities as a wood preservative for utility poles, crossarms, and fenceposts. Pentachlorophenol may be released to the environment as a result of its manufacture, storage, transport, or use as an industrial wood preservative for utility poles, cross arms, and fenceposts, and other items that consumes about 90% of its production. Results of an environmental partitioning model indicate that pentachlorophenol partitions mainly to soil. Pentachlorophenol has been detected associated with particulate matter in air. Screening biodegradability tests give conflicting results; pentachlorophenol does biodegrade but may require several weeks for acclimation. Pentachlorophenol mineralization in the relatively unpolluted water of Long Island Sound and water from several sites in the Hudson Estuary in summer was also very low. Major human exposure will be workers or other people who handle or breathe air near wood that has been preserved with pentachlorophenol and through consumption of food that contains the pesticide.
