Error Forces Bellmawr P.O. Closed

TRENTON, N.J. – Part of the Bellmawr postal facility was shut down Tuesday after it was discovered a machine that tested positive for anthrax had not been cleaned.

Officials noticed Tuesday afternoon that contractors hired to clean anthrax spores off the computer screen of the barcode sorting machine worked instead on another unit, according to U.S. Postal Service spokesman Paul Smith.

Employees were given the option of leaving the Bellmawr facility, but were told the work floor posed no immediate threat. The area around the sorting machine was closed.

Smith said the contractor would return Tuesday night to clean the correct machine, a process expected to take about four hours.

"We're hoping to have everything back to normal by (Wednesday)," he said.

The Bellmawr facility reopened Sunday after being shut down the day before when FBI tests detected the spores on the computer screen. Also on Tuesday, mail from the distribution center in Hamilton was sent to be irradiated and the post office in West Trenton was reopened. Postal facilities in West Trenton and West Windsor have also closed and reopened after anthrax was found since the Hamilton distribution center was shut down Oct. 18.

Most of the anthrax-related scrutiny in the state is again focused on Hamilton.

Roughly a half-million pieces of mail – most of them unsorted bulk mail like advertising flyers and catalogs – were at the Hamilton facility when it was closed.

While other mail was rerouted and delivered, that mail had not budged until Tuesday, when it was sent to an irradiation facility in South Jersey.

IBA, a Belgium-based company that irradiates medical supplies and – more controversially, food – announced Tuesday that it had a renewable three-month, $2.4 million contract to irradiate mail at its Bridgeport, Gloucester County facility.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Carl Walton said the stranded mail could be delivered to its intended recipients as early as this week.

The mail will be beamed for a few seconds with high-speed electrons that kill all bacteria – the same process used in sterilizing medical equipment.

Walton said the paper could be discolored, metal could be heated and electronics could be damaged. Magnetic strips on credit cards won't be affected, he said.

Walton said post office facilities will be outfitted with similar equipment to kill pathogens in all mail.

Mark McLoughlin, president of IBA's Chicago-based North American operations, said the company would probably use X-rays to irradiate mail after the initial, stranded mail is processed.

He said the electron beams make sense for the Hamilton mail because it's already packed in uniform containers. Normally, the electron beam mail would take longer to prepare.

State health officials don't expect results until later in the week from anthrax tests on samples taken from 47 post offices that feed the Hamilton center.

Dennis McGowan, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Health, said there was no reason – such as employees of those offices testing positive for the spore – to believe they might be contaminated.

The Hamilton facility is known to have handled three letters containing anthrax. The letters were sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in Washington last month, and to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post in September.

Three of the five confirmed New Jersey anthrax victims worked at the Hamilton facility, and a fourth postal worker handled mail from Hamilton at another office. None of the state's anthrax cases have been fatal.

Walton said the Hamilton facility is being cleaned and won't open for at least several weeks.

Meanwhile, a team of four epidemiologists was due to arrive in New Jersey on Tuesday to help state and federal health officials already working on the anthrax contamination.

Princeton University closed its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs after receiving a suspicious letter for about three hours Tuesday.

University spokeswoman Marilyn Marks said an envelope postmarked in Canada had no return address and contained an oily, paint-like substance.

Marks said the substance was sent to a lab for testing, the area of Robertson Hall was decontaminated and the building was reopened around 2:15 p.m.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News