FEMA-Issued Trailer Tests Positive For High Levels Of Carcinogen

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A community action group said it was open Tuesday to replacing a Tahlequah man's surplus Federal Emergency Management Agency-issued travel trailer after it tested positive for

Tuesday, August 28th 2007, 2:52 pm

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A community action group said it was open Tuesday to replacing a Tahlequah man's surplus Federal Emergency Management Agency-issued travel trailer after it tested positive for high amounts of a carcinogen.

The test, ordered two weeks ago by the man's property manager, found the trailer had formaldehyde levels at .17 parts per million, or 70% higher than levels recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency and American Lung Association. Formaldehyde, a substance found in building supplies such as plywood and carpet, can cause health problems in high concentrations.

"It is definitely a warning bell," said Cleon Harrell, executive director of the Cookson Hills Community Action Foundation Inc., a nonprofit agency that acquired 84 surplus FEMA travel trailers and mobile homes through the state.

Harrell said a state agency is conducting its own test of the trailer, but added Tuesday his group would be willing to swap out the trailer.

The travel trailers, which have been linked to health problems, are among the thousands left over after hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.

In Oklahoma, various agencies have received 300 surplus FEMA trailers for temporary housing, offices or storage, according to the state's Department of Central Services Property Distribution Division, the coordinating agency for state and local groups wanting to acquire excess federal property.

One of the units went to Tahlequah resident Don Sellman, fresh out of welding school and looking for a place he and his family could stay until he found work. Sellman received his temporary home from the Bridges Out of Poverty program run by Harrell's agency.

But Sellman said he couldn't spend more than a half-hour inside because he became ill and was concerned about the health of his wife and baby girls.

Last week, the Department of Central Services said it would test a batch of the trailers housed at a surplus federal property site in Oklahoma City for high levels of formaldehyde

A federal lawsuit recently filed on behalf of 500 Louisiana residents included claims that hurricane survivors were exposed to dangerous levels of formaldehyde in some of the 120,000 FEMA-issued trailers.

This month, the federal agency announced it would no longer sell or ship travel trailers for hurricane evacuees while it probed the health-related concerns. FEMA also said it would move thousands of hurricane victims out of the trailers.

Across the country, nearly 19,500 travel trailers have been sold at government auctions, donated or disbursed through states' surplus property programs, according to FEMA figures through late July.

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