Bill Nelson: “I take this opportunity to share with the Senate a letter I received from a 13-year-old named Kevin from St. Cloud, FL.…”

“I take this opportunity to share with the Senate a letter I received from a 13-year-old named Kevin from St. Cloud, FL. It is a town in Osceola County, near Orlando, FL, in the center of our State. Kevin writes this letter, and I will read part of it: I'm 13 years old and a Boy Scout of America. I would like to address you about a problem in a local park, that may be a problem in other parks. The park near my house has arsenic in the wood. Please help with this quickly. I have a little brother who plays in the park. That is from a 13-year-old writing to a Senator. Kevin, I hear you. I hope my colleagues do, too. Kevin is addressing a problem many families and communities all across our Nation now find themselves confronting. They are all asking the question: Is my local park safe from the arsenic-treated wood which, when the rains come, leach the arsenic from the playground wood into the soil? Should I tell my children they cannot play in the park because of the wood that is treated as a preservative with arsenic? What I found is that local officials, county commissioners, city commissioners all across Florida and many other States have raised similar questions about the use of arsenic to treat wood in playgrounds and backyard decks. The fact is, none of these communities has been given any clear guidance of what to do about arsenic-treated wood in their parks, in their backyards, and neither have the parents of kids such as Kevin.”