USPS to Deliver 1.8 Million Piece Backlog from Sterilized Sites

The United States Postal Service has begun delivering mail from two sites that had been contaminated with anthrax spores. In each case the mail was decontaminated at offsite locations.

One third of the one million pieces that had been held in Washington, DC’s Brentwood facility have been sanitized, and is being delivered, the Postal Service announced.

The First Class mail had been held since Oct. 17, when anthrax spores were located in the Brentwood processing center. The Post Office began delivering the pieces, along with a letter offering information about the irradiation process, on Nov. 23. The remainder of the mail is scheduled to be processed and delivered during the next few weeks.

In a contaminated Trenton facility, delivery of roughly 800,000 pieces will begin Dec. 1. Mail from this site will be placed in plastic bags, and will be accompanied by a letter identifying it as sterilized. The delivery backlog is expected to last at least three weeks.

To date the USPS has tested 284 sites. Only 22 have had positive results, and only two, including the Brentwood facility, are currently closed.