July 9, 2008
By Douglas Stanglin
USA Today

Gulf Stream, the main supplier of travel trailers for displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina, knew of high levels of formaldehyde in some of the trailers, but did not tell anyone because it regarded the situation as a public relations and legal matter, not a public health issue, the Democratic chairman of a House oversight committee said Wednesday.

Photo: A U.S. House lawmaker says one of the largest makers of FEMA trailers knew of high levels of formaldehyde in the structures. Here, a child looks out of the window of a FEMA trailer on May 26 in Port Sulphur, La. (By Mario Tama, Getty Images)

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who convened hearings on the trailer issue, said internal documents from Gulf Stream, which provided the trailers to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, showed the company had found "pervasive formaldehyde in its trailers, and didn't tell anyone."

Gulf Stream received over $500 million from FEMA for 50,000 trailers for Gulf Coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Katrina victims now occupy 15,000 travel trailers in the region, a sharp drop from the more than 143,000 trailers that once housed displaced residents.

Prolonged exposure to formaldehyde can lead to breathing problems and is also believed to cause cancer. Complaints by trailer residents began popping up shortly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with residents of FEMA-issued trailers reporting frequent headaches, nosebleeds and other ailments.

Waxman said the documents showed that Gulf Stream's tests of 11 trailers showed levels of formaldehyde higher than that which can cause adverse health effects.

Tests also showed that over half of unoccupied trailers, which were sitting on lots awaiting transfer to displaced families, showed concentrations of formaldehyde at or above a level that Environmental Protection Agency says people should not be exposed to for more than eight hours in their entire lifetime.

"Gulf Stream never told any families living in its trailer about these test results," Waxman charged.

He also said the government was at fault.

"No one was looking out for the interests of displaced families living in FEMA trailers," Waxman said. "FEMA failed to do its job and trailer manufacturers took advantage of the situation."

Jim Shea, chairman of Gulf Stream, said there was no actual "testing" of trailers. Instead, there was informal screening with a Formaldemeter, which is not a scientific test. However, Shea said his company in 2006 asked FEMA if it should test the trailers. But FEMA said no, he said.

The heads of three other suppliers of travel trailers also attended the hearing.

Republicans on the committee blamed federal government for not having standards for safe levels of formaldehyde in trailers and said the hearing was too narrowly focused on manufacturers.

In advance of the hearing, a GOP staff analysis said "blaming trailer manufacturers for doing what was expected of them would be misplaced and ineffective."

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., ranking member on the committee, said he is worried about the impact of the attitude of manufacturers the next time the federal government seeks their help quickly during a major disaster.

"In the future," Davis said, "I dare say that a lot of these companies are probably unlikely to respond.

The GOP report also faults the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, FEMA and the EPA for controversial testing that led to misleading results about the formaldehyde exposure. Last year, scientists tested hundreds of FEMA trailers and found potentially dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said that the country "failed" Gulf Coast hurricane victims in the initial response to the disaster and in putting them in unsafe trailers.

"Our country is becoming a culture of mediocrity and failure to be empathetic to human beings."

Tony Buzbee, a lawyer representing hundreds of current and former trailer occupants who are suing dozens of trailer manufacturers, said before the hearings that it is laughable to assert that the manufacturers bear no responsibility for the levels of formaldehyde in the trailers they made.

Contributing: The Associated Press

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-07-09-trailers-fema_n.htm