Ricin contamination shut down the Senate on Tuesday, but questions about its origin left industry groups waiting before making any recommendations to their members regarding altering their mailing plans.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) reported that the poison had been found in his office’s mailroom, but that no one had become ill as a result of exposure to it. As a cautionary measure, the V Street mail center in Washington DC was closed, and three Senate office buildings which were shut could remain closed until the end of the week.
The Direct Marketing Association alerted its members that mail service to several companies in downtown Washington DC was interrupted today because they are served by the same facility that processes government mail.
Separately, a mail clerk in a Wallingford, CT facility noted small powder particles leaking from an envelope late Monday night. As of late Tuesday, the powder, which was different in appearance from the substance found in Sen. Frist’s office, had not been identified. Neither the clerk who found it nor any other postal worker reported any ill effects.
The notice from the DMA also pointed out that authorities have not determined whether the ricin found in the Senate mailroom arrived through mail channels.
The DMA also observed that commercial mail usually enters the mail stream through routes that bypass postal sorting locations, and that direct mailers upgraded security procedures after several locations were contaminated by anthrax in late 2001.
Furthermore, direct mailers place emphasis on identification on envelopes and pre-notification of consumers giving recipients greater confidence in recognizing the source of mail. Changes also have been made by the USPS in its procedures for maintaining their sorting and transporting equipment providing yet another additional layer of safety.
Most industry organizations held off telling their members to change their mailing plans.
“We probably wouldn’t make any recommendation based on the limited scope of the findings,” said Gene A. Del Polito, president of Washington, DC-based Postcom.
He continued, “If anything needs to be done, I’m sure the postal inspection service would send out an alert, and thus far there is nothing from the postal inspection.”
Neal Denton, executive director of the Non-Profit Mailers’ Association, echoed this, calling for “prudence” until more was known about the situation.
The ricin contamination caused the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which had been scheduled to hold hearings on the postal reforms recommended last year by the President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service, to juggle its schedule. A meeting originally slated for Tuesday at 2 PM was cancelled without being rescheduled, according to Committee spokeswoman Andrea Hofelich.
A Wednesday hearing was rescheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and moved from the now-closed Senate office building to room 2151 in the Rayburn House Office Building.
Even if the contamination is limited to the Senate office buildings, it was another does of bad news for DMers. Del Polito summed up mailers’ frustrations at the latest obstacle to their operations, saying “Who the hell needs another one of these scares, just as we thought the mailing industry was turning a corner?”
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