Hazardous Materials

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday that it would accelerate efforts to get victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita out of government-supplied trailers after tests showed that the temporary residences contain unhealthy levels of toxic formaldehyde. Tests in a statistically sampled selection of 519 trailers showed that formaldehyde levels averaged five times higher than levels in new housing, and in some cases much higher than that.

Excessive chlorine levels in a pool in Wausau sent more than 40 children to hospitals, authorities said. The kindergartners at Lincoln Elementary were learning about water safety at a nursing home pool when they started to have difficulty breathing. Officials said a pool circulation pump stopped working and restarted, throwing the chlorine concentration out of balance.

An evacuation order has been extended through today for dozens of residents chased from their homes after cars on a derailed train started leaking and spewing toxic fumes, fire officials said Wednesday. Capt. Fernando Herrera said hazardous material crews are working to remove the 29 train cars that derailed late Monday and haven't reached the tankers that spilled acid. Sixty residents in about 40 rural homes were evacuated after the 65-car train derailed in the agricultural community of Mecca.

In 2005, veteran Los Angeles County firefighter Crystal Golden-Jefferson died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. At first her death was a mystery: The 41-year-old Inglewood mother had always prided herself on her fitness. But now Jefferson's parents believe long-term exposure to brominated chemicals used as flame retardants in household furniture foam caused their daughter's death. Studies show that when burned, such compounds convert to brominated dioxin.

Moving to reverse decades of limited federal oversight, the Senate voted Thursday to make sweeping changes to the government's system of regulating toys, appliances and thousands of other household products. The 79-13 vote could lead to a major expansion of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and stiffer penalties for companies that manufacture or distribute hazardous products.

Sixty people who had to leave their homes after a train derailment released toxic fumes earlier this week were allowed to return on Friday. Hazardous materials crews had neutralized and removed most of the soil contaminated when a 65-car train derailed and spilled toxic phosphoric and hydrochloric acid Monday near the community 140 miles southeast of Palm Springs by the Salton Sea, Riverside County Fire Capt. Fernando Herrera said. All of the acid had been removed, and air quality readings indicated no hazardous vapors.

An explosion released a cloud of hydrochloric acid gas at an engine plant in Carefree, sending at least 26 people to a hospital, authorities said.

With television cameras capturing the moment, Italy's agriculture minister on Thursday ceremoniously devoured pieces of white, chewy mozzarella cheese and proclaimed that there was no reason for alarm. But alarm is what is engulfing Italy's $500-million mozzarella industry after the cheese that is a beloved quintessential national product came under unsettling scrutiny.

The air above the TXI Riverside Cement Plant was blinding white Tuesday, blocking out the blue sky. For as long as Mary Alfonso, 79, can remember, dust from the factory has been a feature of life on "the Hill" just above it. When she and her husband moved to the neighborhood near the border of Riverside and San Bernardino counties 52 years ago, they joked about its uniqueness because all the roofs were white. "Then my car turned white -- and it started out green!" said Alfonso.

A controversial, estrogen-like chemical in plastic could be harming the development of children's brains and reproductive organs, a federal health agency concluded in a report released Tuesday. The National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, concluded that there was "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children were in danger because bisphenol A, or BPA, harmed animals at low levels found in nearly all human bodies.