FEMA Announces Refunds For Travel Trailers Purchased By Disaster Occupants And Through GSA Sales

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced today that it will offer to refund the purchase price of travel trailers or park models to individuals who wish to return units purchased directly from FEMA or through the General Services Administration (GSA). This initiative is part of an ongoing effort to address concerns about possible adverse health effects of formaldehyde associated with recreational vehicles.

For GSA auction sales, refunds for the purchase price of travel trailers and park models will be offered for units purchased through GSA auctions on or after July 24, 2006, until such sales were suspended in July 2007. Individuals who want to return their travel trailer or park model unit must contact FEMA within a 60-day period beginning January 17, 2008.

For units sold by FEMA directly to disaster assistance applicants occupying the unit, FEMA will offer to refund the purchase price of any travel trailer or park model sold on or after July 31, 2006, until such sales were suspended in July 2007. The refunds option applies to disasters declared on or after Aug. 29, 2005. Occupants will have 60 days from the date of notification to request a refund.

Buyers must have purchased the units directly from FEMA or GSA. The refunds will be provided upon repossession of the units.

Individuals and disaster applicants, who have questions regarding the purchase of their unit, may call FEMA at 1-866-562-2381 or, TTY 1-800-462-7585.

Purchases through GSA

FEMA will notify via e-mail each individual who purchased a recreational vehicle (travel trailer or park model) sold to the public as excess by FEMA through GSA on-line auction sales. The e-mail will include the refund period and procedures for requesting a refund. Buyers will need to send a written request for a refund to FEMA within 60 calendar days of the initial public notification date, January 17, 2008. The written request must include the GSA Sales Contract Number, the purchaser’s name, the purchase price and the purchaser’s receipt for payment.

Buyers must submit a Direct Deposit form with an original signature to allow for the electronic deposit of funds and an unsigned, voided check or deposit slip along with a signed and completed Trailer Refund Checklist form. Both forms will be provided via the e-mail notification.

Purchasers must return units to the designated FEMA facility; the original Certificate to Obtain Title or the original Title to the unit must be signed and returned to FEMA Logistics Current Operations Branch prior to return. FEMA will not reimburse purchasers for upgrades or work done to the unit; individuals are responsible for arranging for transportation or travel and paying for the associated costs.

Refunds will be transmitted to the purchaser’s bank account by direct deposit within 30 days of the unit’s physical return to the designated FEMA facility.

Refund requests should be sent to FEMA at the following address:

Attn: Logistics Current Operations Branch
Federal Emergency Management Agency
500 C Street SW, Room 330
Washington, D.C. 20472

Purchases Directly From FEMA

FEMA will mail a letter to each disaster assistance applicant who purchased their recreational vehicle (travel trailer or park model) directly from FEMA between July 31, 2006, and July 31, 2007, for major disasters declared on or after Aug. 29, 2005, notifying them of the option and procedure for seeking a refund. Buyers who wish to seek a refund will need to contact FEMA within 60 calendar days of the date of the notification letter they receive.

Applicants who contact FEMA through the toll free number will be transferred to the appropriate Transitional Recovery Office (TRO) or field office in order to process the refund request. The TRO or field office will obtain the original Certificate to Obtain Title from the applicant, if the purchaser still has the document, and any other titles the applicants obtained for the unit.

FEMA will deactivate and haul away recreational vehicles for occupants who want to return the units to FEMA for a refund. Refunds will be transmitted to the purchaser’s bank account by direct deposit within 30 days of the unit’s physical return to FEMA.

For occupants still residing in the recreational vehicle and who are in need of, and remain eligible for, housing assistance from FEMA, a caseworker from the respective field or Transitional Recovery Office will work with the applicant to help them move them into other housing.

FEMA coordinates the federal government’s role in preparing for, preventing, mitigating the effects of, responding to and recovering from all domestic disasters, whether natural or man-made, including acts of terror.

Bush Admin on FEMA’s Toxic Trailers: Screw the Poor!

President Bush-Talk To The Hand

Source: Alternet.org

The Bush Administration, FEMA and Governor Hailey Barbour — just said screw the poor, let’s build more casinos and luxury accommodations.

Remember those toxic FEMA trailers? Looks like folks in Mississippi hoping for more affordable housing to be built so that they can start to get back on their own feet again will have to keep on waiting.

The Bush Administration and FEMA — along with former RNC head turned lobbyist turned Governor Hailey Barbour — just said screw the poor, let’s build more casinos and luxury accommodations. Again. I’m not kidding. Via Digby:

While thousands of Mississippians who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina remain in FEMA trailers, the federal government on Friday approved a state plan to spend $600 million in grants earmarked for housing on a major expansion of the state-owned port — a project that could eventually include casino and resort facilities.

[...]

The money in question is part of $5.5 billion in HUD Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) that Congress authorized for Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005. Administered by the Mississippi Development Authority, about $3.4 billion was allocated to replace and repair some of the nearly 170,000 owner-occupied homes destroyed or damaged by the storm. Another $600 million was set aside for programs to replace public housing, help small landlords fix their units and foster construction of new low- and moderate-income housing.

Scout Prime has more. Well, what’s wrong with being stuck in FEMA trailers because there is no where else to move to that these folks can afford? Here’s what’s wrong:

FEMA “ignored, hid and manipulated government research on the potential impact of long-term exposure to formaldehyde” on Katrina and Rita victims now living in the FEMA trailers, the congressmen wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose department includes FEMA.

Whitehouse Informed Of Fatal FEMA trailers

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/fema-katrina-tr.html

Meet Pamela Lichele Lewis, a homeless 4.0 GPA student at Griffin Technical College that was displaced by Hurricane Katrina and is presently sleeping in a 95 Ford Explorer as a resident of Riverdale, Ga. without a source of income. The student, a Katrina survivor, was recently denied food-stamps by Clayton County-DFAS in Jonesboro, Ga. because she is not working at least 20-hours/wk while attending school. And to top things off, a FEMA representative informed the student that her case was closed because THEY did not meet their deadline on February 28, 2007. Therefore, the case was closed as if no further assistance is needed. Not only that, but the Katrina survivor was also denied assistance with housing because she was not on section 8, public housing or living in a HUD home prior to Hurricane Katrina. They are only helping them at this time.

Within the last two years, numerous letters were sent to David Scott, Congressman of Georgia District 13th. His administrator met the displaced victim only to give the victim a case of water and sent back out into the streets to live in an automobile.

When the Katrina survivor spoke to Mayor Phaedra Graham and the City Manager, Iris Jessie, at a mayor’s and councilman’s meeting that was open to the public, the victim was told that all Katrina victims are being referred to the American Red Cross. The American Red Cross informed Ms. Lewis that they had no more money for the Homeless survivors. This lead the Katrina survivor back to living in her truck.
The Whitehouse and the Speaker of the House also received numerous emails and letters in regards to this matter over the past two years. The Whitehouse informed Ms. Lewis that the Liaison Office will direct this matter to the appropriate agency to have this issue resolved. It has been over two years and Pamela L. Lewis, a Katrina survivor, is still homeless sleeping in her truck without a source of income.

Baby Death Due To FEMA Formaldehyde Poison

The Sea Coast Echo

A Bay St. Louis resident who worked in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency following Hurricane Katrina alleges the embattled agency knew of potentially dangerous levels of formaldehyde in trailers in December 2005 and the death of a Diamondhead newborn may be connected. A congressional hearing held last month have resulted in changes to many of FEMA’s procedures, including distributing formaldehyde information, revising guidelines of swapping trailers to temporally halting sales and deployment of travel trailers. The hearing comes after nearly a year of investigations by the media and public interest groups.

But Jesse Fineran, a former Hancock County Emergency Operations Center hazardous material specialist, said he brought the issue to the attention of numerous federal agencies in the daily meetings Hancock County EOC with government representatives nearly two years ago.
Fineran’s involvement began in October 2005, when his wife, who has asthma, needed aid after stepping into the couple’s son’s FEMA trailer. Fineran received a trailer a couple of months later, where his wife experienced the same problems. Fineran had both his son’s trailer and his trailer tested for formaldehyde. He said Tests showed levels of 0.38 and 0.21 parts per million, respectively.
Fineran’s son had his trailer replaced and Fineran received a special “product sensitive” trailer. Tests on these were 0.18 and 0.21 parts per million, respectively, Fineran said.
Fineran’s wife is now living in Louisiana while Fineran lives in a FEMA trailer in Bay St. Louis.
Tests were done in trailers in November 2005 at a staging lot in Kiln, Fineran said. The tests, conducted by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, showed not only above-normal levels in the trailers, but the background level around the staging area was also elevated, Fineran said.
“They knew people were suffering,” Fineran said.

One Family’s Toxic FEMA Trailer Nightmare

Jun 10, 2008 | Parker Waichman Alonso LLP

Although several agencies list formaldehyde as a likely carcinogen, there is no one standard for an acceptable level of exposure to this dangerous chemical.  The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA); the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through its Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) have three different standards with the CDC’s set the far below the others.

Immediately following the Hurricane Katrina devastation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ordered about $2.7 billion worth of trailers and mobile homes to house Katrina victims.  FEMA’s requirements were detailed in a mere 25 lines, with minimal details regarding occupant safety.  Today, industry and government experts say this is linked to a public health catastrophe involving 300,000 people, many children, who lived in Toxic FEMA Trailers and were—in many cases—exposed to high formaldehyde levels exceeding the CDC’s recommended 15-minute exposure limit for workers.  Fifteen minutes is the limit at which acute health symptoms begin to appear in sensitive individuals.

In its March 2008 FEMA Trailer and Mobile Home Assessment, the CDC wrote that “there is no specific level of formaldehyde that separates “safe” from “dangerous.”  While the CDC found that although levels of formaldehyde varied from unit to unit of a particular brand, nearly all brands of Toxic FEMA Trailers tested had units with high formaldehyde levels.  Though it did not declare high levels of formaldehyde unsafe, the CDC “supported the need to move quickly,” and get people out of FEMA housing before summer, as heat can increase formaldehyde fumes.

Formaldehyde is an industrial chemical that can cause nasal cancer, may be linked to leukemia, and worsens asthma and respiratory problems.  Within months of moving into the trailers, residents began complaining about unusual sickness; breathing problems; burning eyes, noses and throats, and even death.  Formaldehyde is emitted from the resins and glues used in many construction components, including particleboard flooring, plywood wall panels, composite wood cabinets, and laminated countertops. Emissions are greatest in warm weather and when trailers are newly constructed.

Lindsay and Steve Huckabee and their four children—now aged two to 13—suffer from multiple, weekly nosebleeds, burning eyes, coughing, congestions, “colds” that don’t resolve, weekly doctor visits, and regular emergency room visits for years now.  Lelah, six, and Michael, two, underwent surgeries over chronic breathing problems.  The Huckabees’ apartment was flooded to the ceiling by Katrina.  The family received a travel trailer in October 2005, then a mobile home in December 2005.

Today, the Huckabees are icons for a Sierra Club movement that believes the Toxic FEMA Trailers have caused widespread poisoning of Katrina victims. The Club tested 69 trailers; most—including he Huckabees’—tested.  The Club is campaigning for stringent standards on formaldehyde levels in building products, such as glues, resins, particleboard, and insulation.  Lindsay has testified before Congress twice—for the House Oversight Committee and the Committee for Science and Technology—about her family’s health issues while living in the Toxic FEMA Trailers.

Eight mobile home parks remain open and are scheduled for closure by year-end.  The majority of the 6,400 families still in Toxic FEMA Trailers are on private land.

The FACES OF FEMA

Out of FEMA Park, Clinging to a Fraying Lifeline

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/us/04trailer.html

BATON ROUGE, La. — Two months ago, as he left the trailer park he called home after Hurricane Katrina, Alton Love, 41, just knew he was on the brink of getting a working car, an apartment and a good job to support the 9-year-old daughter he is raising on his own.

Doris Fountain was in a comfortable hotel, waiting on a water heater and an air-conditioner for her once-flooded house in New Orleans.

Matthew Bailey had just received his first check — $48 — for selling diet products via the Internet, a source of income he insisted would ultimately pull in $5,000 to $20,000 a month.

Their plans, the fragile products of battered optimism, have been derailed by bureaucratic obstacles and the evacuees’ own tenuous abilities to cope.

Mr. Love is living in an apartment paid for by an agency for the homeless but has no job or transportation. Ms. Fountain, still at the hotel, has the appliances, but new problems have cropped up at the house, including sparking electrical outlets and a strong odor of sewage. Mr. Bailey has moved to a studio apartment paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but is still paying far more for his membership in the Internet company than he is earning.

“Hopefully things will pick up, though,” Mr. Bailey, 43, said. “That’s the way I see it. Things are bound to pick up.”

At the end of May, the doors closed at Renaissance Village, the FEMA trailer park outside of Baton Rouge that had been home to hundreds of families, its end hastened by an official acknowledgment of unhealthy levels of formaldehyde in the trailers. Those who were left at the park at the end, most of whom were among the neediest of the evacuees, began moving out on their own.

In light of the early promise that the recovery from the hurricane would provide the chance to address New Orleans’s social ills, the farewell to the trailer park might have been an opportunity for a fresh start, with families fortified by more than three years of government support and charity programs. But when the park closed earlier than expected, government planners said they were left unprepared.

State and federal officials blamed each other for the plight of those whose mental limitations, physical afflictions or addictions, exacerbated by their exodus, have kept them from taking advantage of what help was available. Now those people have left their cramped quarters behind but taken their problems with them.

Support systems have been slow to catch up. Red Cross money for necessities like furniture, work clothes and, in some cases, cars, ran out just as Renaissance Village and most of the other trailer sites were closing, and many residents are making do with nothing but a mattress. A contract for case managers who helped evacuees get back on their feet ended in March, and a new case management pilot program is still in the planning stages almost three years after the storm.

“I know we’re behind the eight ball,” said Paul Rainwater, the executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. “People talk about recovery, but on one level, we’re still responding.”

The problems these families face are complex. Ms. Fountain, 65, could afford to fix the faulty repair work at her house if she had an award from the state’s Road Home program for homeowners. But Ms. Fountain’s husband of three decades died in 2007, and she cannot get the money until she can establish that the house is rightfully hers, a process that costs upward of $1,500. The legal service hired by the state to help low-income people with such issues has a long waiting list.

Meanwhile, Ms. Fountain, still in the Baton Rouge hotel, still grieving for her husband and worried about a son who has just been deployed to Iraq, has given in to incoherent fits of anger. Only recently, the lap dog she got after her husband’s death had to be euthanized.

“She’s had mental issues to break out before,” said Ms. Fountain’s daughter Jean Marie Selders, who is living with a friend in New Orleans and saving part of her paycheck to help with her mother’s house. “The longer it takes, the more distorted she gets.”

Many evacuees are not easy to help, especially when their situations are at least partly the products of their own bad decisions. Take Mr. Love, who back in May jauntily said, “I don’t have no sorrows.” Now, he is at what he calls an all-time low.

More on this story please follow the link above.

Dying for a Home: Toxic Trailers Are Making Katrina Refugees Ill

http://www.alternet.org/katrina/48004

By Amanda Spake, The Nation. Posted February 15, 2007.

FEMA-supplied trailers for displaced Gulf Coast residents have been found to emit formaldehyde vapors, causing serious health problems.

Along the Gulf Coast, in the towns and fishing villages from New Orleans to Mobile, survivors of Hurricane Katrina are suffering from a constellation of similar health problems. They wake up wheezing, coughing and gasping for breath. Their eyes burn; their heads ache; they feel tired, lethargic. Nosebleeds are common, as are sinus infections and asthma attacks. Children and seniors are most severely afflicted, but no one is immune.

There’s one other similarity: The people suffering from these illnesses live in trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

An estimated 275,000 Americans are living in more than 102,000 travel trailers and mobile homes that FEMA purchased after Hurricane Katrina. The price tag for the trailers was more than $2.6 billion, according to FEMA. Despite their cost of about $15,000 each, most are camperlike units, designed for overnight stays. Even if the best materials had been used in their construction — and that is a point of debate — they would not be appropriate for full-time living, according to experts on mobile homes. The interiors are fabricated from composite wood, particle board and other materials that emit formaldehyde, a common but toxic chemical.

“Formaldehyde is a very powerful irritant,” says Mary DeVany, an industrial hygienist in Vancouver, Washington. “When you inhale the vapors … the breathing passages close off.” The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified formaldehyde as a human carcinogen. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that more than 0.1 parts per million of formaldehyde in air can cause eye, lung and nose irritation. Few scientists dispute the chemical’s power to worsen respiratory health. Yet there is no federal standard for formaldehyde in indoor air, or for travel trailers, and no consensus on whether any “safe” level exists.

Last summer FEMA began distributing a leaflet to trailer residents explaining that the materials used in the interiors can release toxic vapors. The agency suggests residents keep windows and doors open and the air conditioner on, yet reduce heat and humidity. (The Gulf’s hot, humid climate increases the rate at which materials release formaldehyde.)

FEMA has not responded to requests for the total number of complaints it has received about formaldehyde — some media reports put the number at forty-six. The agency does say that seventeen trailers in Louisiana had to be replaced because of the chemical.

Many residents suffering from symptoms, however, are afraid to complain to FEMA, fearing the agency will take away the only housing they can afford. It was complaints of respiratory problems to the Sierra Club that led the organization to test fifty-two FEMA trailers last April, June and July. Some 83 percent of the thirteen different types tested had formaldehyde in the indoor air at levels above the EPA recommended limit.

Air sampling by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration at holding stations where groups of trailers were kept before they were set up revealed high formaldehyde levels even in outdoor air. At the holding station in Pass Christian, Mississippi, formaldehyde in outdoor air was thirty to fifty times the level recommended by the EPA, and several times OSHA’s workplace standard.

One of the first to notice an unusual number of illnesses among trailer residents was pediatrician Scott Needle of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. “I was seeing kids and families coming in with repeated, prolonged respiratory illnesses — sinus infections, lingering coughs, viral infections that didn’t go away,” Needle says. The mothers told him that their children had never been sick like this before. Some of the infants had to be hospitalized. “Over the course of three months, I saw several dozen families with these health problems. That’s really high, and this isn’t something I’d seen in my practice before. All of them were living in FEMA trailers.”

Angela Orcut, a preschool teacher, and her three year-old son, Nicholas, are typical of Needle’s patients. “Ever since we’ve lived in this trailer, Nickie wakes up every morning choking and coughing,” Orcut says. “He’s had so many sinus infections since we moved in here.” At night, when the family returns to the closed-up trailer, “the smell burns our noses and our eyes,” she says.

Like many trailer residents, Orcut has not filed a complaint with FEMA. “I’m afraid if I complain, they’ll take the trailer away,” she says. “Then where will we live?”

Paul and Melody Stewart have a similar story to tell about their health problems, which began shortly after moving into a FEMA trailer at the site of their storm-ravaged house. “When we got here, it smelled bad,” says Paul, a former Waveland, Mississippi, policeman. Melody woke up the first night they stayed in the trailer, gasping for air. “Within a week,” he says, “we both had nosebleeds.”

One morning the Stewarts found their cherished pet cockatiel lethargic and unable to stand. They rushed the bird to the vet, who said the cockatiel would die if he were kept in the trailer. Stewart began doing research and discovered that the wood products used to make cabinets, walls and other interior parts could emit formaldehyde, especially in hot, humid climates.

He bought a testing kit for airborne contaminants and sent it back for analysis. In winter, with windows open and the air conditioner on, the test showed, the formaldehyde level in the Stewarts’ trailer was more than two times the EPA’s limit. Still, FEMA refused to replace the trailer until a story about the Stewarts’ formaldehyde problems ran on the local television news. FEMA called the next day to say they were bringing a new trailer.

For more on this story please follow the link above.

FEMA covered up cancer risks to Katrina victims

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/01/29/fema_coverup/index.html

Jan. 29, 2008 | Last summer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was publicly shamed when lawmakers revealed the agency, to avoid lawsuits, put off testing trailers used to house Hurricane Katrina victims for formaldehyde, a toxic chemical. Now, documents obtained by Salon show that FEMA also pressured scientists to water down a report on the health risks of formaldehyde. FEMA officials instructed the scientists to omit any references to cancer or other long-term health risks from exposure to formaldehyde in FEMA trailers.

In a scathing letter sent today to Dr. Howard Frumkin, chief of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Reps. Brad Miller, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, and Nick Lampson, chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, wrote, “you appear to have been complicit in giving FEMA precisely what they wanted … However what FEMA wanted and what you approved giving them was not the whole truth regarding formaldehyde. It was not based on ‘best science,’ nor did it provide ‘trusted health information’ to the Katrina survivors.” FEMA and ATSDR officials are expected to testify Tuesday before the House Committee on Homeland Security, which is also investigating the matter.

After Hurricane Katrina, FEMA placed tens of thousands of displaced families in travel trailers, more than 40,000 of which are still in use. Almost immediately, hundreds of families called FEMA to complain of illnesses, from breathing difficulties, bloody noses and rashes to more serious problems, and even deaths, possibly connected to high levels of formaldehyde gas permeating the trailers. Formaldehyde is a nearly colorless gas with a pungent, irritating odor even at low levels. It is used in many products and manufacturing procedures, notably as an adhesive in plywood used to make trailers. Health reports reveal that exposure to formaldehyde can impact fertility and the developing fetus, leading to spontaneous abortion or physical malformations.

In May 2006, FEMA asked ATSDR to compose a “health consultation” on the FEMA trailers. Dr. Christopher De Rosa, chief of toxicology for ATSDR, told FEMA that any report on health risks of exposure to formaldehyde would have to include information on the risk of cancer and other potential long-term problems. At that point, De Rosa was cut out of the loop. Internal ATSDR documents show that FEMA contacted two of De Rosa’s staffers, who then prepared the misleading consultation. When, nine months later, De Rosa learned ATSDR had omitted the key health information in its advisory, he drafted a letter to FEMA trial attorney Patrick Edward Preston.

“I am concerned that this health consultation is incomplete and perhaps misleading,” De Rosa wrote. “Formaldehyde is classified as ‘reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.’ As such, there is no recognized ’safe level’ of exposure. Thus, any level of exposure to formaldehyde may pose a cancer risk, regardless of duration. Failure to communicate this issue is possibly misleading, and a threat to public health.”

De Rosa also wrote to Frumkin, noting “FEMA’s initial contact came directly to me nine months ago on this issue.” “I reviewed the proposed statement and specified that they had neglected to address longer term risk including cancer.” After eight months of tense negotiations, a revised report included references to the potentially harmful effects of formaldehyde. But other health information, including the likelihood of other toxic gases, such as toluene, being present, was omitted, as was De Rosa’s insistence that ATSDR call for the government to take immediate action to end formaldehyde exposure to trailer residents and monitor them for long-term harmful effects. Records show that following his protests, De Rosa in October 2007 was “reassigned” out of his long-term post as director of ATSDR’s divison of toxicology and environmental medicine. De Rosa was not available for comment.

In their letter to Frumkin, the lawmakers wrote, “Yet, even after you were specifically told about the scientifically flawed and potentially misleading information in this report and apparently agreed that it should be amended, your agency did not revise this Health Consultation until seven months later in October 2007. Your lack of urgency in this matter is remarkable.” A call to Frumkin’s office was not returned.

In an equally contemptuous letter to Michael Chertoff, who, as head of Homeland Security, oversees FEMA, the lawmakers accused the agency of perverting ATSDR’s mission to provide independent health consultations. “Despite that mission, FEMA insisted that ATSDR produce a report that would meet FEMA’s legal and policy goals, not the public health issues of the residents — some of them ill — of those trailers. Incredibly, ATSDR obliged. As a result, ATSDR stands discredited … We have no confidence that the new testing protocols and sampling design agreed to by FEMA and ATSDR for the current testing are any more trustworthy than the previous one.”

FEMA spokesman James McIntyre acknowledged that the agency did not call for data on long-term effects. In a statement, he wrote: “This agency has and continues to take responsible steps to address formaldehyde in its direct housing units. FEMA has been proactive in reviewing the situation, has recommended a wide range of actions to travel trailer residents that reduce health risks, and has been working with experts to better understand the health environment and to investigate additional short and long-term solutions. The health and safety of residents has been and continues to be our primary concern.”

In April 2006, the Sierra Club discovered high levels of formaldehyde in the trailers, spurring federal testing. Says Sierra Club spokesman Oliver Bernstein today: “At this point, all we can do is wonder whether FEMA is taking this seriously. Nobody should be living in housing that will make people sick. There are still tens of thousand of people, mostly along the Gulf Coast, still being exposed. It’s another example of politics trumping science.”

Dr. Heidi Sinclair, medical director of the Children’s Health Project, affiliated with Louisiana State University, was frustrated by the eight-month delay in making the correct information available. “If people had known about the possible long-term consequences, perhaps more of them would have made an effort to find more appropriate housing for the families that have been stuck in these FEMA travel trailers for two and a half years,” she said. “As people moved out, there hasn’t been a system set up to track people. If you are worried about the long-term possible consequences, it would have been nice, before people moved out, to create a database to track the long-term health of families that stayed there for an extended period of time. It’s going to be much harder now to track people down.”

Toxicity in FEMA Trailers Blamed on Cheap Materials, Low Construction Standards

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 3, 2008; Page A03

High levels of formaldehyde found in trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina evacuees on the Gulf Coast probably resulted from cheap wood and poor ventilation in designs used by manufacturers under permissive government standards, federal scientists reported yesterday.

An analysis by researchers for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that four Katrina trailers emitted the toxic chemical at levels four to 11 times as high as those found in typical U.S. homes. The study looked at both commercially available units and ones custom-built for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2005 and 2006.

The new findings appear to confirm the role that manufacturers’ practices and weak federal regulation played in the public health disaster after the August 2005 storm. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has called trailermakers to testify Wednesday.

“Manufacturers of travel trailers and the government agencies that influence their design should consider using construction materials that emit lower levels of formaldehyde as well as designs that increase outside air ventilation,” said Michael McGeehin, director of the Division of Environmental Health Hazards at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which commissioned the study.

Formaldehyde, an industrial chemical used in adhesives found in wood products, can cause nasal cancer and worsens asthma and other respiratory problems. There is no binding safety standard for the chemical in U.S. homes. Under a 23-year-old rule, the government limits formaldehyde emitted by wood products only in mobile homes, which typically sit on concrete pads, not in wheeled trailers or other housing. It also does not restrict how much of that wood can be used.

Berkeley researchers said they found “exceptionally large emissions of formaldehyde” in units tested and traced the chemical’s presence to extensive use of cheap, light plywood and particleboard for walls, flooring and cabinet surfaces. At the same time, trailers “are not outfitted for adequate ventilation and are tighter than would be desired for housing with such small volume,” they said.

Formaldehyde was “found to be higher, sometimes much higher, than what is typically found in residential environments,” they wrote. “The combination of these factors is likely to be the cause.”

The CDC recommended this year that all FEMA trailer residents be moved to safer housing. The agency found that 42 percent of trailers tested in December and January had levels of formaldehyde higher than those for which it recommends a 15-minute exposure limit for workers. Residents probably experienced higher levels when trailers were new and during warm weather, the CDC said.

FEMA received 11,000 health complaints and moved more than 4,000 families. About 19,000 Katrina units remain occupied, down from about 143,000.