INDIANAPOLIS — The trailer industry and lawmakers are pressing the government to send Haiti thousands of potentially formaldehyde- laced trailers left over from Hurricane Katrina — an idea denounced by some as a self-serving attempt to dump inferior American products on the poor.
“Just go ahead and sign their death certificate,” said Paul Nelson of Coden, Ala., who contends his mother died because of formaldehyde fumes in a FEMA trailer.
The 100,000 trailers became a symbol of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s bungled response to Katrina. The government had bought the trailers to house victims of the 2005 storm, but after people began falling ill, high levels of formaldehyde, a chemical that is used in building materials and can cause breathing problems and perhaps cancer, were found inside. Many of the trailers have sat idle for years, and many are damaged.
In a Jan. 15 letter to FEMA, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the trailers could be used as temporary shelter or emergency clinics.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which is coordinating U.S. assistance in Haiti, has expressed no interest in sending the trailers to the country. FEMA spokesman Clark Stevens declined to comment on the idea.
Haitian Culture and Communications Minister Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said Thursday she had not heard of the proposal but added: “I don’t think we would use them. I don’t think we would accept them.” The Associated Press
