Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Postal Service continues to use radiation to kill any possible bioterrorism materials in letters sent to Capitol Hill, one of the targets of the 2001 anthrax mailings, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Friday (see GSN, Dec. 9, 2004).

The service spent roughly $1.5 billion to deploy detection technology intended to identify any biological hazards that might pass through mail distribution sites around the nation.

"It's an extraordinarily effective system," said Postal Service spokesman Gerald McKiernan. He said that using X-rays or electron beams on mail sent to U.S. lawmakers is "duplicative."

The Senate sergeant-at-arms office, which requested the continued service with its House counterpart and the Secret Service, disagreed.

"The Capitol is still a target," one official said. "Irradiation affords a level of protection."

The federal government spent more than $74 million between November 2001 and April 2008 to use radiation on 1.2 million containers of mail that were sent to ZIP Codes used by Congress, the White House and U.S. agencies with offices on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.

In that general period, the amount of mail that went through the process each month dropped from 23,700 to 10,900, the Government Accountability Office found. It attributed the reduction to the greater use of private delivery companies and the Internet as means of reaching Congress.

A total of 663 boxes of mail sustained damage during irradiation, the Democrat-Gazette reported.

"Some of [the letters] can get quite crispy," McKiernan said, "but that doesn't make them unreadable."

Some letters are also delayed by the requirement that they be irradiated (Alex Daniels, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 20).