USDA: IMPORTERS COMPLY WITH SOLID WOOD-PACKING RULES

USDA: IMPORTERS COMPLY WITH SOLID WOOD-PACKING RULES       U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys show that importers are complying 99 percent of the time with its solid wood-packing rules for shipments from China and Hong Kong.
      USDA imposed the wood-packing rules last year after discovering destructive Asian longhorned beetles in trees around New York City and Chicago. The beetles were traced to untreated solid-wood packing in shipments from China and Hong Kong.
      Importers must indicate on their documentation that shipments either contain or do not contain solid-wood packing materials. If shipments do contain this material, it should be properly heat treated or fumigated prior to export from China and Hong Kong.
      “There have been some problems, but we’ve been pleased with the compliance overall,” said David Reeves, staff officer with USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, based in Riverdale, Md.
      Of the 1 percent of non-compliant shipments, the USDA found that two-thirds were a result of failure to declare that shipments did not contain solid-wood packing. Other non-compliant shipments contained solid-wood packing but weren’t documented as such.
      The agency recently completed an inspection of 1,275 containers at various West Coast ports, such as Los Angeles, Oakland, Calif. and Seattle.
      “We found one container that had a live pest in the wood packing,” Reeves said. “It wasn’t the Asian longhorned beetle, but it was one identified as a quarantined pest (a monochamus species).”
      USDA is also considering broader coverage of its wood packing rules. “We’re looking at solid-wood packing as a pest pathway from all countries of the world,” Reeves said.