Scoop! Breaking News - TimberSIL Wins EPA Approval

Posted live from Greenbuild.

We're fans of TimberSIL. We're such big fans that we named it a Top-10 product in 2004. And now, despite efforts by the chemically treated wood industry to have it classified as a pesticide (as well as a nearly disastrous situation with a licensee a while ago), they've received some news that should turn the tide.

It's a few minutes before the expo floor opens at Greenbuild, and Karen Slimak, the environmental chemist who invented TimberSIL, has given BuildingGreen the scoop. It hasn't been announced anywhere else yet — so here's a world debut for you:

After a four-year assessment, despite the aggressive lobbying of traditional wood treatment chemical companies which led to an unusually thorough investigation, the EPA has determined TimberSIL to be a nontoxic physical barrier product exempt from pesticide regulations. What's more, this is the first time the EPA has ever expressly stated that any product of this sort qualifies as a barrier product — though it had determined that such a thing could potentially exist within its regulations over two decades ago. Evidently somebody at the EPA 20 years back had some foresight.

Specifically, TimberSIL is the first material to qualify for the 40 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Section 152.1 Barrier Exemption which defines such products as "intended to exclude pests only by providing a physical barrier against pest access." Additionally, a letter signed by Frank T. Sanders, director of the Antimicrobial Division of the Office of Pesticide Programs of the EPA, states that "the product has no toxic mode of action."

In other words, TimberSIL is everything its proponents have claimed it is all along.

Congratulations!