House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Hammers FEMA over safety of Hurricane Housing Units--

By Shelley Bluejay Pierce

7/21/2007


WASHINGTON DC- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator, David Paulison, was grilled by members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday, July 19, 2007. During the hearing, lawmakers from both parties accused the FEMA of ignoring the problem of high levels of formaldehyde in the housing units FEMA provided to hurricane survivors in the Gulf regions after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Subpoenaed records revealed that FEMA lawyers warned officials of potential liability problems if tests suggested government negligence. A series of e-mails obtained from FEMA were read during the hearing that detailed the agency's lawyers recommendations to FEMA employees stating, "…advised that we do not do testing, which would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue." Another FEMA attorney on June 15, 2006 wrote, "Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK. Once you get the results ... the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."
Native American Times released a story on June 28, 2007, revealing that FEMA intended to sell the mobile homes and trailers in surplus to the general public and to Native Americans who desperately need housing on reservations.

Scientific expert, Mary DeVany, stated clearly at the onset of the hearing, "FEMA needs to test and assure all units have safe formaldehyde indoor air concentrations immediately." She continued, "Also, these trailers must not be sold or donated to Native Americans or others without this testing being done to assure safe air quality."

The chairman of the oversight committee, Representative Henry A. Waxman, (Dem/California) said 5,000 pages of documents released Thursday revealed a battle between the FEMA field staff and officials at the agency's headquarters. Waxman chastised Director Paulison at the hearing for failing to provide requested documentation for over a year.

"They wanted to ignore the problem," Rep. Waxman said, referring to headquarters officials. "What we have is indifference to the suffering of people who are already suffering because of Hurricane Katrina, and this is from an agency that's supposed to serve the public."
Mary DeVany, an occupational health and safety engineer served as an advisor to the Sierra Club that performed formaldehyde testing of the housing units in question.

Written testimony provided to the committee by Mary DeVany provided more insight into the history of the FEMA testing programs for the trailers. DeVany explained that in July 2006, FEMA developed and implemented an air monitoring and sampling plan to establish and verify methods to reduce the presence of formaldehyde fumes in travel trailers. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted the sampling and then the data was analyzed by the ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Register), which is affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

DeVany, further wrote that the results of this study showed high levels of formaldehyde in nearly all of the trailers, whether they were continuously ventilated or were kept cool through air conditioning. Without giving any explanation, although the ATSDR has an exposure limit of 0.008 ppm for exposures of 365 or more days, rather than use this limit when analyzing EPA's air sampling of FEMA's trailers, the ATSDR arbitrarily chose a limit of 0.3 ppm as their "level of concern" and applied this high level to the results as if it were a safe and applicable exposure limit.

DeVany explained to the committee, "This level is nearly 400 times the ATSDR's limit for people exposed more than 365 days, as the hurricane victims living in travel trailers are, and resulted in a bizarre skewing of the sampling results interpretation. However, even applying this 'level of concern,' the average sampling results were even higher than this very elevated level. This misapplication and skewing of scientific results is at best unethical and grossly misrepresents and attempt to minimize the adverse health effects being experienced by thousands of travel trailer residents."

Details revealed in the hearing showed that FEMA did test one trailer that was occupied by a pregnant woman and her 4-month-old child. The results showed formaldehyde levels 75 times higher than the maximum recommended for workplace exposure by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

One of the people testifying before the Oversight Committee was Lindsay Huckabee who explained the events she and her family endured while living in one of the single-wide mobile homes provided by FEMA following Hurricane Katrina.

"We were told that we qualified for a single-wide mobile home because of our family size. If we cleared a site, provided our own septic, water and power to the site, they would deliver a home. We met all of the requirements and were ready for the trailer by mid-November. On December 14, 2005, our new home was delivered and set up. We had four children and another due at the end of February."

Upon moving into the mobile home, the Huckabee family was plagued with illness. Family members suffered burning eyes, nosebleeds, coughs and respiratory difficulties. Lindsay Huckabee began having migraine headaches and later went into pre-term labor, ending with a premature birth of her newborn. When the infant left the hospital and was taken into the mobile home, he too began suffering from typical formaldehyde exposure symptoms.

"FEMA does not run air quality tests on the homes they provide; my air quality test was done at the expense of the Sierra Club. I have heard there is a pamphlet that was given to people by FEMA about formaldehyde, but I never received one, not even with the second mobile home they later delivered to us. If it had not been for my family's medical problems, I would not have known about the formaldehyde problem. I am scared to think of how many other families are being exposed to high levels of formaldehyde and will have medical problems in the future," explained Huckabee to the committee.

Lindsay Huckabee and her family received two different mobile homes, each being 60 x 14 feet, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, furnished units. The first mobile home was made in 2005 by Fleetwood Homes and the second unit was also made in 2005 but manufactured by Destiny Homes. The first mobile home was replaced by FEMA after testing revealed that the formaldehyde levels were high. The second home that the family continues to live in also has high levels of formaldehyde.

Another hurricane survivor, Paul Stewart, a former Army Airborne infantry officer and police officer from Bay St. Louis, Miss., explained to the oversight committee members that he engaged in a four-month battle to convince FEMA that his trailer was a health hazard. He said the agency made him feel like a "charity case."

"We lost a great deal," he told the committee, "not the least of which was our faith in government."

U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) sent a letter directly to FEMA Director, R. David Paulison, to address concerns raised by tribal members in South Dakota regarding the recent news reports of high formaldehyde levels in surplus units that Johnson had requested for use in Indian Country. Questions about formaldehyde levels in FEMA's travel trailers led Sen. Johnson to ensure all mobile homes headed to Indian Country are safe for long-term habitation.

"Every step possible must be taken to ensure that only safe and reliable housing is ever distributed to Indian Country. As FEMA works with the Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control, and Department of Health and Human Services to improve conditions in travel trailers, similar efforts must to be taken to ensure no related threats arise in tribal mobile homes," Johnson wrote to Paulison.

In March 2006, Johnson began his efforts to put the excess mobile homes to good use by suggesting they be sent to Indian Country to help house families who are homeless or under-housed. Last fall, Johnson pushed a provision in the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act that gave FEMA the ability to work with other government agencies to distribute these homes.

"These problems were unforeseeable when I originally requested the homes for Indian Country, however it is now a priority that must be addressed to ensure a positive outcome for Indian Country," Johnson said.

Dagny E. Olivares, Health Communications Specialist for the National Center for Environmental Health/ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Prevention at the CDC told Native American Times that their agency has held meetings prior to the Oversight Hearing yesterday addressing the need for testing of the emergency housing used by FEMA.

"We are working on the inter-agency agreement that examines the objectives of the study and the methodologies needed for testing the FEMA housing units for all indoor air quality. This agreement goes all the way up to the department level at the CDC, FEMA, HHS and Homeland Security. We are moving very quickly to finalize this agreement and will make that final plan available to the public so that they will know exactly how our agencies are moving forward with this issue," explained Oliverez.

"When FEMA took on the role of landlord for the thousands of people, they took on the responsibility to provide a safe, fit home for these people. This temporary housing should have given people time to get on their feet again, and even save some money for a permanent home. Instead we are spending so much on medical bills and prescriptions, we are actually moving backwards," Lindsey Huckabee concluded in her testimony before the committee.

As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers with hundreds having complained of ill effects. Further hearings and investigations into FEMA's handling of the housing for hurricane survivors will continue.