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### EPA’s Pressed Wood Manufacturing Industry Survey

BACKGROUND ON EPA’S INVESTIGATION OF FORMALDEHYDE AND PRESSED WOOD

. EPA has launched a broad effort to gain a greater scientific understanding of the potential health risks of formaldehyde's use in pressed wood products. Through this process, EPA will develop risk assessments on potential adverse health effects, evaluate the costs and benefits of possible control technologies and approaches, and determine whether EPA action is needed to address any identified risks. The Agency is pursuing this course of action following review of a citizens' petition submitted in 2008 under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This investigation is a separate activity from EPA’s National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) which determined the Maximum Available Control Technology (MACT) for Plywood and Composite Wood Products (PCWP). The NESHAP addresses emissions from equipment used to manufacture plywood and composite wood products, while the TSCA investigation addresses emissions from the pressed wood products and the finished goods that contain pressed wood products. More information about the TSCA investigation is available at http://www.epa.gov/oppt/chemtest/formaldehyde/.

ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE SURVEY ON USB DRIVE. The USB drive included in the survey package contains an electronic version of the questionnaire in a fillable Adobe® Acrobat® Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The survey questions on the USB drive are identical to those on the paper copy. You do not need to complete and return both the USB drive and the paper copy. If possible, please complete the electronic version and return the USB drive to EPA, instead of using the paper version . The electronic version of the questionnaire has additional features that should make the survey easier for you to complete, and returning the electronic copy reduces EPA’s time and cost to process your response and avoids transcription errors.

To start: The survey is designed to operate in Acrobat Reader version 9 , which is loaded on the USB drive. To launch the Acrobat Reader version 9 and use the electronic survey, first close any other copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer (and close any Acrobat files you have open on a web browser).

Next, open the USB drive directory. How you do this depends on your computer system, but it can commonly be accomplished by using the My Computer desktop icon to launch Windows Explorer, and choosing the location of the USB drive. Then double click on the file called “Please Double Click to Begin Survey.exe ”. This program will ask you two screening questions, open the copy of Acrobat Reader version 9 on the USB drive, and launch the survey that applies to you.

Fill in the survey: If your answer is longer than the space available on screen, all of your response will be captured in the file although a truncated response will show up on screen followed by a + sign.

After entering your responses : Please save the file with its original file name in the folder on the USB drive called “Survey Files”. You can save a partially completed survey and reopen it later to continue to filling it out (or revise earlier answers), the same as a standard computer file, although you will need to
select the file “Please Double Click to Begin Survey.exe ” and answer the two screening questions each time you open the questionnaire.

To save a duplicate copy of your electronic response for your files after you have saved it to the USB drive, you can select “File” → “Save As” in Acrobat and choose the location to save the copy, or use Windows Explorer or another program to copy the file. If you would like to print out a copy of your response, click on the printer icon in Acrobat or choose “File” → “Print”.

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GENERATING ADDITIONAL COPIES OF QUESTIONS. Some portions of the questionnaire are labeled at the top of the page as “Copy #1 of ...” (such as “Copy #1 of Question 5”, or “Copy #1 of Section V”). If you make more than one product category or adhesive/emissions class (as defined in the survey), you should respond to these questions separately for each category or class. Because the questionnaire provides limited space for reporting on multiple product categories or adhesive/emissions classes, you may need to generate additional copies of these questions. The process for creating extra survey pages differs depending on whether you are completing the survey electronically or on paper.

Using the Electronic Version of the Survey. If you are using the electronic version of the survey, click on the “Add Copy” button on the page to automatically generate additional copies of the questions. More details on using the “Add Copy” button are on page 1 of the survey instruction package.

Using the Paper Version of the Survey. If you are completing the paper version of the survey, there are extra copies of the survey pages on the USB drive in the folder labeled “Instructions and Extra Copies”. You can open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader and print off as many copies as you need. The pages of these extra copies are labeled at the top as “Copy ___”, such as “Copy ___ of Question #5”, or “Copy ___ of Section V”. If you use the extra copies, please fill in the blanks to indicate which copy the page represents (such as “Copy #2 of Question 5”, “Copy #3 of Question 5”, etc.), complete the questions, and staple the extra pages to the back of the questionnaire. If you have any questions, or are unable to print from the USB drive and need paper copies of the extra pages mailed to you, please contact EPA.

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. If you wish to claim any of your responses as confidential business information (CBI), please follow both the CBI directions on pages 2 and 3 of the instruction package and the steps in the enclosed document titled “Instructions for Returning the Completed Questionnaire to EPA.” Do not email your completed questionnaire to EPA, as EPA’s email system is not secured to protect CBI

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RETURNING THE COMPLETED SURVEY TO EPA

. The survey package includes a preaddressed, prepaid UPS envelope for you to return the questionnaire to EPA. Additional details are provided in the document labeled “Instructions for Returning the Completed Questionnaire to EPA. ” If you are completing the electronic version of the survey, please save the padded envelope that the USB drive came in, and use it to return the USB drive to EPA

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