LITTLE ROCK — One-quarter of the 32 Federal Emergency Management Agency mobile homes available to Arkansas tornado victims contain formaldehyde levels above what's typically found in indoor air, according to data released Tuesday by the Arkansas Department of Health.
Gov. Mike Beebe now faces deciding how many - if any - of the units, selected from the stockpile of 7,500 in Hope, to offer to Arkansans displaced by the Feb. 5 storms.
It is a complicated decision because no federal standard exists for formaldehyde exposure in residential settings. Standards exist for the workplace, but they vary drastically.
Beebe is meeting with state Department of Emergency Management Director David Maxwell and state Department of Health Director Paul Halverson today to try to reach a consensus on an acceptable exposure level for residents of the Natural State.
Beebe said at a Monday news conference that he likely will not accept the mobile homes with the highest formaldehyde levels.
"It's not an easy issue," Halverson said. "We'll try to weigh the needs of these Arkansans with the potential health risks."
"Ultimately, it will be up to the individuals to decide whether or not they will accept a mobile home," he said.
Formaldehyde is a naturally occurring chemical present in the air.
It's also used to make commercial adhesives. The glue is commonly used to bond together products like plywood, particleboard and medium-density fiberboard, which is then used to build walls, floors and cabinetry in mobile homes and travel trailers.
In high doses, it can cause eye and throat irritation. High doses have also caused cancer in laboratory rats.
On Tuesday, FEMA spokesman Greg Hughes said the agency believes all 32 units now available for shipment to storm victims are safe. They had the lowest formaldehyde levels of about 250 mobile homes at Hope that FEMA has tested so far.
In the 32 units, formaldehyde levels ranged from 3.1 parts per billion to 86 parts per billion.
Eight of the 32 mobile homes have formaldehyde levels above 30 parts per billion.
Between 10 to 30 parts per billion of formaldehyde is present in most indoor environments, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Halverson said his agency has tried in recent days to reach consensus with peers in Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi - states also in need of emergency housing - on an acceptable level of exposure.
Existing standards from various U.S. agencies apply only to workplaces, and they are quite different.
For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration says workers can be exposed to 750 parts per billion of formaldehyde over an eight-hour period without any adverse health effects.
But the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health is more stringent. That agency said adverse health effects are possible if workers are exposed to 16 parts per billion of formaldehyde over an eight-hour period.
"The holdup is wanting to make sure citizens of Arkansas are safe," Maxwell said. "Since there are no federal standards for indoor formaldehyde exposure, it has put the Health Department in a very difficult position."
Tennessee has already accepted 37 mobile homes with formaldehyde counts at or below 40 parts per billion, said Jeremy Heidt, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
The first eight units, which came from a stockpile in Alabama, were delivered Monday to residents in Macon County, Tenn. No one has moved in yet.
Heidt said that decision was largely based on research that showed formaldehyde levels on busy street corners sometimes reaches levels of 40 parts per billion.
In Arkansas, the final decision of whether to accept a unit will rest with each family.
"If it's in that gray area, we'll provide all the information to the people and let them make their own call," Beebe said.
Halverson said he hopes the state can make a decision by the end of the week.
Matt DeCample, the governor's spokesman, said Beebe knows that mobile homes must be released as soon as possible.
"We know we've had people waiting for temporary housing for nearly two months," he said.
"Now that it appears FEMA is wrapping up their end of things, we want to get them help as soon as we can."
In Atkins in Pope County, where dozens of residents are still working to rebuild their lives after a tornado damaged or destroyed 100 homes, Mayor Jerry Barrett is tired of waiting for the FEMA mobile homes to arrive.
The county requested 70 mobile homes after the tornado hit.
"We told them we wanted them from the get-go," he said. "There ain't anything there yet. Seems like they're not going to leave Hope."
For now, Atkins residents are staying with relatives or in campers. Others are renting places out of town and commute, Barrett said.
Becky Gillette, a Eureka Springs resident who headed the Sierra Club's national investigation into formaldehyde levels in travel trailers and mobile homes, said tornado victims like those in Atkins should be wary of accepting any mobile home from FEMA.
"These numbers sound pretty good, but this is the same crap people have been living in that's been making them sick," she said.
"I'd still have concerns, myself personally, about living in any of those trailers."
The units in Hope are part of the same batch of 145,000 mobile homes and travel trailers that FEMA bought to house families after hurricanes Katrina and Rita made landfall in 2005.
Gillette testified about formaldehyde levels in FEMA housing before the U.S. House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Tuesday.
She was joined by a federal scientist who said his superiors ignored pleas to alert Gulf Coast hurricane victims earlier about severe health risks from formaldehyde in government-provided trailers and once told him not to write e-mails about his concerns, according to The Associated Press.
Christopher De Rosa, who until recently was one of the government's top toxicologists, said he repeatedly raised concerns early last year that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not adequately informing the public of the hazard, even as symptoms were surfacing in those living in the units.
As a result, tens of thousands of families displaced by Katrina and Rita remained in the trailers without full knowledge of the risks, AP reported De Rosa as saying.
Hundreds of these families have since reported health problems that they link to formaldehyde in lawsuits against manufacturers of mobile homes and travel trailers.
But J.D. Harper, executive director of the Arkansas Manufactured Housing Association, said the mobile homes in Hope shouldn't be discarded out of hand.
"We haven't even gotten to the housing mission, if there is going to be one, for the flooding in northeast Arkansas," he said.
"There are going to be as many, or even more, people needing emergency housing units after the floodwaters recede."
Front Section, Pages 1, 6 on 04/02/2008