BOSTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Contractors this weekend are to begin to decontaminate a Connecticut postal facility where traces of anthrax were found six months after spore-laden letters sent to two U.S. senators passed through the facility, a postal spokesman said Wednesday.
Officials announced last week a new round of tests found three out of 103 samples taken from the Southern Connecticut Processing and Distribution Center in Wallingford, Conn., tested positive for the deadly pathogen.
That was more than six months after contaminated letters sent to Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., were processed at the facility.
The most recent tests found traces of anthrax in the ceiling near three sorting machines that tested positive last fall. Cross-contaminated mail sent to Ottilie Lundgren, 94, of Oxford, Conn., who died of inhalation anthrax in November, also passed through those machines.
"Decontamination will be addressing those areas, which are in the ceiling," U.S. Postal Service spokesman James Cari told United Press International.
"We are tentatively looking to implement the first stages of the decontamination plan this Saturday," Cari said. "The entire process is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete."
Cari said the center will remain open, but in a limited operational capacity during this period.
"The largest limitations to the operations will occur during the first two weeks or so of the process, and after this the facility will operate at levels that are close to normal," he said.
Mail that normally comes through Wallingford will be redirected to other processing facilities, and there will be no disruption to the public, he said. Many of the 1,100 workers at Wallingford also will be shifted temporarily to the other facilities.
The decision to begin the decontamination of the 350,000-square-foot facility came after meetings over the weekend with officials from the post office, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Five people died from inhalation anthrax in the attacks that began in early October and also included sites in Florida, Washington, New York City and New Jersey.
As a result, postal facilities in Brentwood in Washington and in Hamilton Township near Trenton, N.J., also were closed for decontamination, as was the Hart Senate Building and other congressional offices in Washington.
