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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.

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.