Anthrax Postal Cleanup Cost $800 Million, Experts Say

Decontaminating 20 U.S. Post Office sorting centers after the 2001 anthrax attacks cost $800 million, and many buildings remain quarantined due to fears of remaining spores, British bioterrorism experts said yesterday (see GSN, March 5).

“Of the 23 [affected] post offices only 20 have been decontaminated,” said Herbert Huppert, a chemical gas attack expert, during a Royal Society presentation yesterday in the United Kingdom (see GSN, April 21). “It cost $800 million and created 3,000 tons of contaminated waste,” he added.

U.S. officials estimated the cost at about $762 million and said all 23 postal facilities were cleaned (David Firn, Financial Times, April 22).

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