The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond quickly or effectively to potentially toxic levels of formaldehyde in trailers provided to victims of Hurricane Rita and Katrina, according to a recent Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s report. A redacted version of the June 26 report was released July 23.

The report also blasts the agency for not having a policy to deal with formaldehyde complaints and for delaying trailer testing two months while it put a public communication strategy in place.

“The report is a disturbing testament of FEMA’s missteps and delays that might well have had a detrimental effect on the health and safety of those living in the trailers,” wrote Senators Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, and other lawmakers in a July 23 letter to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate.

The report estimated that about one-third of the 203,000 temporary trailers and mobile homes had high levels of formaldehyde, which is thought to cause severe respiratory distress in those exposed to high concentrations or for prolonged periods. According to the report, factors leading to the high levels included the trailers’ newness, which didn’t allow time for outgassing of formaldehyde in the building materials, and excess heat and humidity, which causes the release of higher levels of formaldehyde and prohibits proper ventilation.

The report paints a picture of official foot dragging and lack of accountability from the earliest indications of a problem in October 2005 until occupied trailers were finally tested by the agency in December 2007. Even as media attention and testing on occupied units by the Sierra Club began to point to dangerous formaldehyde levels, the agency was more concerned with covering their assets than getting to the root of the problem:

“OCG [the Office of the Counsel General] has advised that we do not do testing, which would imply FEMA’s ownership of this issue,” the report quotes one official as writing in June 2006.

Because of the delays, the report concluded, “test results may have underestimated the extent of formaldehyde exposure that residents had experienced in the trailers. Most of the units were 2 years old by the time of the testing, and the testing was conducted during the winter months when formaldehyde levels are lowest.”

While FEMA agreed with the report’s recommendations—which include creating better policies and working agreements to ensure health and safety issues are dealt with promptly—officials stated that the report didn’t “adequately emphasize the compelling fact that there were no established formaldehyde standards for travel trailers and no consensus in the health and regulatory communities as to what constituted acceptable residential formaldehyde levels.” An interactive timeline of the event, created by ProPublica, can be found here.