U.S. Pallet Industry Urges Domestic Action Against Wood-Eating Pests

(American Shipper – Chris Gillis)

The U.S. wood pallet industry has an effective plan for its part to prevent the spread of invasive wood-eating pests throughout the nation’s forests, but is increasingly frustrated by what it says is a failure by the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to act upon it.

The Alexandria, Va.-based National Wooden Pallet and Container Association proposed that APHIS quickly adopt a national standard consistent with the international standard for treating wood packaging against pest infestations.

“You might well ask why an industry would advocate implementation of a new government regulation on their product,” said Bruce Scholnick, NWPCA president and chief executive officer, in a Sept. 5 letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer. “The threat of invasive species destroying our nation’s trees is a crisis of such magnitude it warrants immediate decisive action.

“Failure to act puts our forests in peril and threatens our industry, and in fact all wood-related industries, with extinction,” Scholnick warned. Read the complete article.