The U.S. Postal Service continued testing facilities around the country for anthrax contamination as it moved to reassure consumers that it was not inadvertently spreading spores with its own mailings.
A recent postcard mailing that outlines procedures for dealing with suspicious mail was not sent from Washington, DC, or any facility under suspicion of anthrax contamination, the Post Office said in an update. The USPS also clarified that despite the Washington, DC return address the postcards were not mailed from anywhere in the district. It did not say where the postcard entered the mail stream.
At the Brentwood facility just outside of Washington, which was closed in mid-October, several mail-sorting areas tested positive for contamination. But three plants in surrounding areas, some of which have taken the overspill from Brentwood, tested negative. These include the Southern Processing and Distribution Center in Gaithersburg, MD, the Northern Virginia Processing and Distribution Center in Merrifield, VA, and the Landover Hub and Spoke facility in Landover, MD.
The Baltimore Air Mail Facility, which had been closed since Oct. 21 as a precautionary measure, was reopened Nov. 1 following a series of negative contamination tests.
Late Thursday, the CDC announced that four New York City facilities tested negative for anthrax contamination. The four Manhattan-based locations are the Times Square, Radio City, Ansonia and Rockefeller stations.
More machines were found to be contaminated with anthrax than had been originally thought at the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in Manhattan. Six, not four, mail sorting and processing machines bore traces of anthrax spores, the Post Office announced Friday.
At the South Jersey Processing and Distribution Center in Bellmawr, NJ, authorities finished their testing, which was started after an employee developed cutaneous (skin-based) anthrax. Results were not available at deadline.
The Post Office also said that on Thursday a request to close a facility in Monmouth, NJ by the Red Bank Local chapter of the American Postal Workers Union was denied by a local judge, but could be re-heard if tests for anthrax at the site prove positive. The New York and Miami locals have filed suits to close facilities in their area. The USPS has not responded to either suit.
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