WWPI SPECIAL ISSUE By Butch Bernhardt
ORIGINALLY FORMED as the Western Wood Preserving Operators Association in 1947, the organization became Western Wood Preservers Institute in 1963. WWPI’s membership today extends to 17 western states and two Canadian provinces.
WWPI celebrates 75 years serving western treating industry
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and the products it represents, Western Wood Preservers Institute looks remarkably solid as it turns 75 years old this year. WWPI started in 1947 when a dozen companies met in Portland, Or., and agreed to pool together $22,000 to begin promoting pressure-treated wood. The objective was to capitalize on a post-World War II surge in construction and infrastructure expansion. From those humble beginnings, WWPI has become one of the leading associations in the preserved wood industry. Its membership features 25 wood treating companies—many operating multiple plants—and 49 other companies involved in the industry, from preservative manufacturers and sawmills to equipment makers and consultants. In 1947, creosote and pentachlorophenol were the dominant preservatives, used to treat utility poles, rail ties, marine pilings, bridge timbers and highway guardrail posts. As a result, the original staff of the association were engineers borrowed from the American Wood Preservers Institute. Fire retardant-treated wood was a fledgling product for the industry in the ike the industry
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late 1940s, coming from the military where it was used to protect ship decks and structures from fire. Fire-retardant treated Douglas fir timbers were used to build massive blimp hangers that still stand today in California and Washington. After two decades focused on industrial and infrastructure uses of preserved wood, WWPI and the industry sought to create new markets—residential construction with do-it-yourselfers. This tracked with the migration to the suburbs, where people had larger yards and a desire to spend leisure time outdoors. What started with a handful of dealers in the Chicago area in the mid1970s exploded into a national boom of decks, fences, gazebos and retaining walls constructed with wood treated with CCA, or Copper Chromated Arsenate. CCA-treated lumber remained popular for outdoor construction for the next three decades, before it was voluntarily removed for residential construction in 2003 due to perceptions about the potential impacts of arsenate in the preservative. In the early 2000s, new copper-based preservatives moved in to replace CCA for residential preserved wood prod-
n The Merchant Magazine n April 2022
ucts. These preservatives include copper azole, or CA-C, in the West and micronized copper azole, or MCA, in the South. To assure regulators and buyers of the quality and performance of preserved wood, WWPI developed the CheckMark program. The CheckMark on treated lumber end tags indicates it was produced to national standards and meets code-mandated requirements. WWPI also pioneered the Best Management Practices, or BMPs, for preserved wood used in aquatic and sensitive environments. The BMPs are intended to reduce the amount of preservative that can move into the environment and WWPI’s work included development of an online modeling tool to determine any potential impacts from commercially available preservatives. Protecting preserved wood markets from excessive regulations has been a top priority throughout WWPI’s history. And the Institute has scored a number of victories. In 2015, WWPI successfully sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to overturn a ban on the use of preserved wood over or in contact with wetlands in the Pacific Northwest. Most recently, WWPI earned apBuilding-Products.com
