FEMA added to lawsuit over formaldehyde-contaminated trailers

A group of people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina is suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency for housing them in trailers contaminated with dangerous levels of formaldehyde. Filed in federal court last week, the complaint adds FEMA to a batch of consolidated cases against manufacturers for allegedly using shoddy materials and construction methods.

After independent tests conducted by the Sierra Club in early 2006 revealed dangerously high levels of formaldehyde, FEMA was slow to respond. In fact, more than a year after the environmental group released its results, FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison told a House committee he was unaware the trailers posed a health threat. The agency was also accused of suppressing health warnings due to liability concerns and meddling into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's study assessing the trailers' risks, though it insists it's done nothing wrong.

In the end, though, the CDC study confirmed serious problems with the trailers' air quality and sparked a mass relocation of trailer dwellers, with all FEMA-managed group trailer sites to be closed by June 1.

Labels: FEMA, formaldehyde, Gulf Coast, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, Hurricane Katrina, lawsuits, toxic trailers