Backstabber Report

Gulf Clean-up Workers Backstabbed With Banned Housing

It seems it isn’t BP this time that’s to blame, but rather, some “entrepreneurs” who see an opportunity to cash in on the latest Gulf disaster by backstabbing workers seeking cheap housing while they perform their clean-up duties.

For those who recall the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, in August 2005, FEMA officials ordered nearly $2.7 billion worth of trailers and mobile homes to house victims of the storm. The manufacturers of those trailers apparently used the cheapest materials available. Formaldehyde, like that found in particle board, were at such high levels in those trailers that respiratory problems, burning eyes, inflamed throats, and even one death (from a man who complained of the fumes in June, 2006).

Federal officials later discovered that formaldehyde — an industrial chemical that can cause nasal cancer, aggravates respiratory problems and may be linked to leukemia — was present in many of these housing units in amounts that exceeded federal limits. Problem trailers were later replaced.

The Government now had trailers that cost taxpayers $130 million each year to store. The answer was to sell them at auctions, stipulating that they could not be resold for use as long term housing. The buyers and every subsequent buyer who might purchase them during the life of the trailer, must continually inform the new purchaser of the health risks involved.

As reported in The NY Times, these rules are not being followed in many cases. Officials with the inspector general’s office of the General Services Administration said Wednesday that they had opened at least seven cases concerning buyers at auctions who might not have posted the certification and formaldehyde warnings on trailers they resold.

Most of the workers in the gulf are not living in the trailers but in newer quarters provided by BP, its subcontractors or by state or federal agencies.

But there are those workers who have had to make other arrangements through private enterprises. Standing in a small field surrounded by a new shipment of the trailers,  one seller, Mr. Mason, declined to say whether he informed buyers of the formaldehyde risks or kept warning labels on the trailers.

One of Mr. Mason’s trailers, shown to a reporter, had an overpowering smell of formaldehyde inside and none of the required placards on the outside or inside indicating the formaldehyde risk or that it was not supposed to be used for housing. The trailer did, however, have a note taped inside to call FEMA.

Mr. Mason, who is based in Texarkana, Tex., added that all of his customers have been happy and that he planned to lease land for 50 more trailers that he would rent out to workers.

“Bottom line,” he said, “I’m providing a service.”

Mr. Mason’s firm and another consulting firm began proposing a plan to large contractors in the region to put about 300 of the trailers on barges for offshore worker housing.

Of the hundreds of buyers from government auctions, dozens are in Louisiana. They include Henderson Auctions, which bought 23,636 units for $18 million, and Kite Brothers RV, which bought 6,511 mobile homes and travel trailers for $16 million.

Does anyone else think these are going to be used, just for parts?