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Anthrax: Postal Service to Spend $35 Million on Decontamination By Mike Nartker The funds will cover the costs of decontaminating the Brentwood Road postal facility in Washington and the Trenton, N.J., Postal Processing and Distribution Center, said spokeswoman Monica Hand. Ashland Inc. and Sabre Oxidation Technologies have been awarded the contracts to clean the two facilities, Hand said, adding that the Postal Service will buy the chemicals and equipment needed for the projects. There has been no specific date set yet for the cleanup projects to begin, Hand said, but fumigation of the two facilities with chlorine dioxide gas is expected to begin this summer. The Trenton facility is scheduled to be decontaminated once work at Brentwood is completed, Hand said. The Postal Service will “just keep doing it till you no longer get growth of spores on samples,” Hand said. Irradiation Sickness? Meanwhile, a report scheduled to be released today says that irradiation, used to sterilize pieces of mail sent to members of Congress since the anthrax attacks, might be responsible for several health complaints reported by congressional staff members, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 20). The report, prepared by the congressional Office of Compliance, says that testing conducted on the air from irradiated mailbags and congressional mailrooms found trace amounts of chemical irritants, according to the Times. “While we do not believe these chemical irritants are life-threatening, we believe further study is essential to determine the effects of extended exposure to irradiated mail, particularly in restricted work areas,” the Times quoted the report as saying. According to the Times, the office recommends that congressional staff members be monitored, that more studies be performed and that preventive measures, such as airing mail before it is handled, be conducted.
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