Mailrooms grow mundane again

A technician opened a letter Dec. 5, 2001, in congressional mail that was suspected of containing anthrax. (AFP/Getty Images/file)

WASHINGTON - After the October 2001 anthrax attacks, Washington's mail became suspect.

Suddenly, mail sorters were wearing ill-fitting masks and powder-free vinyl gloves. Companies added expensive new ventilation systems and washed down mailroom counters with bleach. More than $74 million was spent to zap the District of Columbia's federal mail with high-energy electron beams and X-rays to kill off dangers.

Two D.C. postal workers died in 2001 after coming into contact with mail destined for Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and then-Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota.

In the years since the attacks, mailrooms have slid back into a more mundane routine and the inconveniences have generally become more manageable.

Workers in a Senate mailroom wear gloves, but not because of anthrax. They don't like the feeling of mail made flaky by being irradiated at 150 degrees.

And the massive effort to kill pathogens on federal mail sent to Washington has dropped by more than 50 percent since its peak, according to a government report released last week, two days after scientist Bruce E. Ivins, a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, died of an overdose of Tylenol.

The average amount of mail irradiated each month has fallen from 23,700 containers per month in 2002 to 10,900 containers as of April, according to the Government Accountability Office. One reason: More people are using e-mail.

But some government agencies also have changed their addresses to dodge the slower system, according to the GAO. The Postal Service treats only mail destined for certain ZIP codes. Officials also rely on FedEx, which has different precautions.

"The anthrax thing was really a shot out of the blue," said Joe Shoemaker, a spokesman for Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. "But it doesn't dominate your thinking like it did several years ago. There's a difference between being aware of a threat and being fearful."

In 2003, an envelope of rice from war protesters made it to Durbin's mailroom after being baked and crushed in the security regimen, he said. When powder poured out, staffers called police.

"They said, 'There's rice in there.' " Shoemaker said. But "the Capitol police thought they said, 'ricin,' " he said, referring to a potent poison. "They shut down the whole floor," Shoemaker said. Months later, ricin was discovered on a letter-opening machine in the office of then-Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee.