a recent thread on the vegetable gardening forum

Here is a link that might be useful: read this

Thanks Lonmower, interesting info to ponder on that thread.

Indeed. I could not help posting a few thoughts myself.

toxcrusadr,

Knowing your line of work, your words are very reassuring... the ties I found have been underground for quit a while... to the point where they are disintegrating. There were yellow ants living in it (I have never seen yellow ants before! A first.) The worms in the area are plump and happy... I am thinking that disintegration indicates they have been down there a rather long time. I am also thinking the ants and worms wouldn't want to live there with it if it was bad soil... there is plenty of other soil available to them in my yard without ties in it... I plan on adding some nice organic soil with manure to the soil that is already there and giving it a go..

Thanks for your insights.

If that were my yard/garden, I would remove the soil that was directly around the railroad ties. It's not hard to do. The soil could easily be relocated to someplace else in the yard where it won't present a problem, or it could be sent to the landfill.

Seems like a pretty easy remedy.

You said you had fat earth worms? Theres your answer...

Your major problem with using Raiload Ties in the garden is you making contact. If any creosote does leach form those RR ties it will not migrate more than about 6 inches from the ties and your plants will not uptake any of it. In your case there is probably not any creosote left in the ties, it is in the soil. Your exposure to any creosote would be by ingestion, most likely by licking your hands after diging in the area, not from eating any food growing there.

Blaze, sarcasm or was my simple guess on to something?

Thanks

Just fyi, got a response back from my local county extension. Their advice is to remove the soil and replace it but only after testing the soul and finding contamination. No contamination, according to them and planting is good to go.

I read on another thread that the testing won't find such contaminates anyway...

Thoughts?

The primary methods of exposure to creosote are contact with your skin which allows the stuff to be absorbed, ingestion if you eat soil contaminated with creosote, or maybe inhalation of someone is dumb enough to be burning the material.
The linked article may provide some information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dangers of creosote

kimmsr is right,low levels in the soil you grow plants in are not very likely to affect you because the stuff would have to be taken up by plants, then taken up by you from what you eat. Neither of those processes are very efficient. Think tiny percentages multiplied by each other.

As mentioned, if you're concerned about it you can certainly remove a couple inches around each tie and dispose of it.

Lab tests would have to be specialized for creosote components. This would not be done as part of a standard soil test, it requires special extraction and analysis methods and costs probably north of $100 per sample. I would not make the investment for what you're looking at there. JMHO.

caziel. I just really love earth worms. Plus I think you might be on to something:-) I think you have a right to worry but at this point Id say youll be OK