What happens to Pentachlorophenol when it enters the environment?
· Pentachlorophenol generally sticks to soil particles, but its movement in soils depends on the soil’s acidity. · Not much pentachlorophenol will evaporate into the air. · It lasts for hours or days in air, soils, and surface waters. · It doesn’t dissolve easily in water. · In soils and surface waters, microorganisms break it down into other compounds. · Sunlight breaks it down in surface waters and air. · Some of the break-down compounds may harm people. ·It is present in fish, but tissue levels are usually low because pentachlorophenol breaks down in the body.[23] How might I be exposed to Pentachlorophenol? · Breathing contaminated air while working with treated wood at wood-treatment facilities and lumber mills · Touching treated lumber, for example, in wood-treatment facilities and lumber mills or in construction or farming · Breathing contaminated air from log homes made from pentachlorophenol-treated logs · Breathing contaminated air near waste sites, sites of accidental spills
