The U.S. Postal Service has moved some of its mail operations from the Trenton, NJ, facility to try to improve delivery as the Christmas season approaches.
Letters containing anthrax bacteria spores were sent to media outlets in New York days after the Sept. 11 hijacked jetliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killed thousands. Those letters were postmarked in Trenton.
Virtually all the nonautomated processing operations from Trenton were moved to a postal facility in South River, NJ, as of Nov. 17, the USPS said in a release.
The only processing center besides the Trenton facility that remains closed is the Brentwood Road facility in Washington, DC.
The postal service said it is working with agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to develop a plan to eliminate contamination and reopen the buildings. Trenton and Brentwood Road were the facilities most affected.
The USPS made alternative arrangements for processing mail in these two areas, and the closings are having a very limited effect on local delivery.
The postal service said it is sanitizing potentially contaminated mail from both facilities using electron-beam technology. The agency continues to sanitize mail from Brentwood Road at a contract facility in Lima, OH. Mail from Trenton is being sanitized at a contract facility in Bridgeport, NJ.
Once this mail is sanitized, it must be examined by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service as part of the law enforcement investigation. The mail then will be delivered. Most recipients will get their mail over the next few weeks.
