-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 19, 2007 4:46:01 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FEMA Doesn't Exist for "Emergency Management," Just for
"Damage Control"
FEMA Suppressed Health Warnings
for Workers, Katrina Victims
Agency Rejected Environmental Testing on Formaldehyde Gas Levels
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post, July 19, 2007; 6:02 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/
AR2007071901039.html
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suppressed warnings
from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006
about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated
levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers,
lawmakers said today.
At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails
indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of
fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health
problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by
Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers.
FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do
testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this
issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three
months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of
the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the
agency was sued.
Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any
testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should
they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to
respond to them."
Committee Chairman Henry L. Waxman (D-Calif.) called FEMA's
bureaucratic neglect of storm victims "sickening."
Nearly 5,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee
"expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance," Waxman
charged. "Senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what
they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral
responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said FEMA obstructed the 10-month
committee investigation and "mischaracterized the scope and
purpose" of the agency's actions.
"FEMA's reaction to the problem was deliberately stunted to bolster
the agency's litigation position," Davis said. The documents "make
it appear FEMA's primary concerns were legal liability and public
relations, not human health and safety."
About 60,000 households affected by Katrina remain in trailers.
FEMA Director R. David Paulison, testifying after sitting through
the four-hour hearing, apologized to Congress for withholding
information and said "in hindsight" FEMA should have started
testing trailers earlier.
"The health and safety of residents is my primary concern,"
Paulison said.
But he added that more research is needed to determine what is
making people sick, and he spread responsibility to a half-dozen
federal health, environmental and housing agencies and private
manufacturers.
"There is an issue inside the trailers, but I don't know if it's
formaldehyde or mold or bacteria" or something else, Paulison said,
adding that he knew of no federal scientific consensus on what
level of formaldehyde in homes is safe.
FEMA has received only 200 formaldehyde complaints, replaced 58
trailers and moved five families into rental units, he said.
FEMA announced yesterday that it has asked CDC to help conduct a
new public health assessment of trailers used for prolonged periods
under real-life conditions.
"The health and safety of residents is FEMA's primary concern and
FEMA believes additional research is needed to address recently
raised inquiries and concerns," an agency press release stated.
U.S. health officials will collect samples, interview trailer
residents, and focus on air quality issues and exposures, including
children, the disaster agency said.
As of May 2007, FEMA had received 140 formaldehyde complaints. Some
Katrina trailer residents filed a class-action lawsuit in June in
federal court in Baton Rouge against trailer manufacturers.
The Sierra Club in May 2006 reported finding unsafe levels of
formaldehyde in 30 out of 32 trailers it tested along the Gulf Coast.
"The American Academy of Pediatrics remains deeply concerned that
Gulf Coast children residing in FEMA trailers may have been and may
continue to be exposed to levels of formaldehyde gas that are
hazardous to both their short-term and long-term health," Dr. Scott
Needle of the American Academy of Pediatrics said in testimony for
the committee today.
The formaldehyde controversy, revived scrutiny of the disaster-
response agency. Its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina in
August 2005 was chronicled in a series of government reports and
led to a congressional overhaul earlier this year.
Today, Waxman and Davis charged that FEMA's apparent ongoing
indifference to storm victims and resistance to investigators
marked an infuriating pattern of bureaucratic self-protection that
augurs poorly for the nation's emergency preparedness.
"The federal government's primary response agency has to be
proactive, nimble, and trusted as the honest broker between
Washington and those in need at the state and local levels," Davis
said. "Reading these documents, I'm not persuaded FEMA is that
agency yet."
Waxman said FEMA's reaction to legal challenges should have been
"to fix the problem . . . I can't imagine how many lawsuits they're
going to face after trying to cover it up."
In May, FEMA said its own tests of 96 new trailers near Baton Rouge
last September and October found formaldehyde at 1.2 parts per
million, but levels dropped to 0.3 parts per million after four
days of ventilation. FEMA said that is the accepted threshold used
by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for its
manufactured homes.
But Mary C. DeVany, an occupational health and safety engineer
advising the Sierra Club, testified that that exposure limit of 0.3
parts per million is 400 times greater than the normal limit for
year-round exposure set by the CDC-affiliated Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Register. It is also three times the daily
exposure limit recommended by the National Institute on
Occupational Safety and Health, she said.
"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," DeVany said.
High levels of formaldehyde were still found in nearly all trailers
sampled, whether continuously ventilated or air conditioned, DeVany
said.
She called on FEMA to relocate without delay people living in
trailers with levels above 0.05 parts per million and not to turn
over any trailers for re-use without testing.
Formaldehyde is a common wood preservative used in construction
materials such as particle board, plywood, glue, curtains, molded
plastic and countertops.
The chemical can cause vision and respiratory problems. It has been
linked to higher rates of asthma, bronchitis and allergies in
children with long-term exposure.
The committee reported that FEMA has tested only one occupied
trailer, in March 2006, finding formaldehyde levels 75 times higher
than the maximum workplace exposure level recommended by NIOSH. But
without further testing, FEMA issued a statement that May saying,
"We are confident that there is no ongoing risk."
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) also cited e-mails that indicated
that FEMA lawyers counseled against acting on recommendations made
by a conference call of 28 officials from six agencies into the
June 2006 death of a trailer occupant in Slidell, La., that may
have been formaldehyde-related.
Paulison today claimed that FEMA recognized only this summer that
its ventilation recommendation was impractical in the Gulf coast's
heat and humidity, although it issued the advice last summer.
He added that FEMA was also concerned that there was not enough
housing in Louisiana and Mississippi to move people out of
trailers, which he called the agency's only tool in an
unprecedented emergency housing crisis.
In a letter to Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) that month, CDC Director
Julie Louis Gerberding wrote that her agency recognized residents'
symptoms but said the effects of formaldehyde "are likely to be
transient."
At a congressional hearing earlier this year, Paulison said, "We've
told people they can air those trailers out," guidance the agency
has formally issued to trailer residents.
Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.) defended trailer manufacturers at
today's hearing and said that reports of illness remained anecdotal
and isolated pending further study, which he supported.
"You can't hang an industry on one case where they checked it,"
Souder said. "We have some individuals, we have 177 formaldehyde
complaints out of 100,000? . . . A sweeping statement doesn't cut
it, there needs to be actual checking and measurement."
Three trailer residents who testified before the panel described
frequent nosebleeds, respiratory problems and mysterious mouth and
nasal tumors that they or family members had suffered. They also
said veterinarians and pediatricians had warned that their pets and
children may be experiencing formaldehyde-related symptoms.
"What makes me so angry is that FEMA is providing trailers to
disaster victims that they have 'inspected' and deemed safe without
truly ensuring that they are," said Lindsay Huckabee, a mother of
five from Pass Christian, Miss., who now lives in a trailer in
nearby Kiln.
"We have lost a great deal through our dealings with FEMA, not the
least of which is our faith in government," said Paul Stewart, a
former Army officer in Mississippi.
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