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Post office resumes delivery of mail to government offices
Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2001
 
• Anthrax Primer
• Testing for Anthrax
• Anthrax: Quick Facts
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Quarantined, sanitized and deemed anthrax-free, millions of pieces of backlogged mail are on their way to government agencies for the first time in more than a month.

The post office resumed delivering mail to government offices in Washington on Monday, postal vice president Azeezaly Jaffer said. That day, the post office delivered about 200,000 pieces of mail, half of it first-class mail, to 189 government agencies.

Millions of pieces of mail addressed to government agencies have been piling up since an anthrax-laced letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was discovered Oct. 15. A contaminated letter addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont has also been found.

Two Washington postal workers have died of anthrax and others have been sickened.

Fearing more contamination, postal officials sent the withheld mail to an irradiation plant in Ohio, where it was decontaminated and then returned to Washington.

Once the mail is returned, it is checked by postal inspectors looking for mail similar to the tainted letters. The inspected mail is now being delivered.

On Capitol Hill, officials said long-delayed mail deliveries could resume next week.

The FBI is holding some 450,000 pieces of mail intercepted before delivery to House offices last month when the anthrax scare began, said Rep. Bob Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee. Later, congressional mail was shipped to a facility in Ohio to be cleansed. Ney said he expected it to be delivered soon, perhaps within about a week.

Ney, R-Ohio, said he suspected many people had stopped writing their members of Congress in light of the mail situation. "Our e-mail and phone calls have picked up tremendously," he said.

Senate mail also is being irradiated. Typically, about 250,000 pieces of mail are sent to Senate offices each week.

Delivery of Senate mail that has been irradiated could resume early next week, a congressional official said on condition of anonymity.

The mail freeze has frustrated lobbyists and others trying to send letters to the government and many have turned to electronic mail.

Congress has even turned away couriers, according to Jeff Harshman, co-owner of the courier company Speed Service. He said not being able to deliver to the Capitol has cost him a quarter to a third of his business and many of his employees have quit because there is not enough work.

Many of Speed Service's clients are lobbyists who send a flood of letters and packages to members of Congress every day.

Jaffer said the Ohio plant has been treating about 750,000 mail pieces daily. That is slightly less than the normal flow of mail to government agencies and a second decontamination plant in New Jersey is expected to help reduce the backlog.

In addition, the post office is purchasing decontamination equipment of its own to handle mail in the future.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, announced it is launching its own decontamination program for mail. In the future, the agency said, it will require that all mail be opened, visually inspected, X-rayed and tested for biological or chemical materials. Once checked, mail will be held for up to three days to await test results before delivery inside the building.

The anthrax threat to Washington followed delivery of tainted letters to news media in New York. Two cases of anthrax also occurred at a tabloid newspaper in Florida, where officials suspect a letter was also sent. One person died of anthrax in New York and another in Florida and there have been illnesses there and in New Jersey, where at least some of the letters were mailed.

One postal facility in Trenton, N.J., and Washington's Brentwood facility – the city's main mail sorting plant – remain closed for decontamination.

Washington mail is currently being handled at postal facilities in suburban Maryland. Government mail is separated out and sent for decontamination before being delivered.

On Tuesday, traces of the bacteria were found in the office mailrooms of Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity. Officials suspect the anthrax got there through contact with anthrax-bearing letters mailed to Leahy and Daschle. So far, anthrax traces have been found in 13 senators' offices besides Daschle's.

The results of tests run on the letter sent to Leahy at Fort Detrick, Md., are not expected before Wednesday afternoon. So far, anthrax traces have been found in 13 senators' offices besides Daschle's.
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