Postmaster General petitions Congress for $1.1 billion in aid

BY TONY PUGH
Herald Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Postal Service wants to screen certain mail for explosives and to install protective bags and letter-tracking systems in mailboxes as part of its ambitious plan to protect the mail from bioterrorism.

The new initiatives are part of a $1.1 billion emergency aid request that Postmaster General John Potter made to Congress this week.

Postal officials refused to spell out any more of the proposals, saying Potter would do that in upcoming congressional hearings.

Potter wants Congress to approve the money before it goes on break for the December holidays.

It would be the first installment of more than $5 billion in emergency aid the agency is seeking during the next several years.

By law, the Postal Service must pay for all operations through its revenue from delivering the mail.

Potter argues that the Postal Service deserves special federal help, because the recent anthrax attacks through the mail require improvements that fall into the category of homeland security.

In early committee hearings, lawmakers have been sympathetic to Potter.

Some question, however, a multibillion-dollar outlay that's based on the assumption that terrorists will use the mail to perpetuate more attacks.

But the possibility of future terrorist incidents and a possible loss of confidence in the mail system make postal security improvements a necessary investment, said Clark Staten, chief executive of the Emergency Response and Research Institute, a Chicago consulting firm that does risk analysis on terrorist issues.

The $1.1 billion would fund until June 2002 a series of mail-security initiatives and cover expenses resulting from the anthrax issue and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

MAIL TREATMENT

After anthrax-tainted letters killed two postal workers in Washington and hospitalized several others in the New York and Washington areas, the agency proposed treating mail with radioactive electron beams and X-rays to kill potentially deadly biohazards.

The agency has purchased eight electron-beam machines for a total of $40 million.

As part of the $1.1 billion request, Potter wants to get $245 million to buy more irradiation machines and to study whether chlorine dioxide gas would sanitize the mail more cheaply.

It's unclear how many facilities would be protected.

The Postal Service operates 290 major sorting plants, 198 larger annexes and delivery units, and 35,000 local units.

SANITIZATION

The Postal Service is sanitizing government mail from Washington and some mail from the New York area at leased facilities in Ohio and New Jersey.

It expects to lease three more sanitizing facilities soon.

In addition, Potter wants $306 million to evaluate and eventually install air-monitoring systems to detect biohazards near mail-processing machines.

The devices, which use lasers to analyze air particles, are being tested by the Defense Department at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

Part of that $306 million also would pay for mailbox linings to protect mail collectors from contaminants and a mailbox letter-tracking system to help trace the origin and route of mail.

SCREENING FOR BOMBS

Potter's request also includes $48.5 million to pay postal inspectors to screen mail for explosives in selected, but unspecified, areas.

The agency wants $67 million to buy floor-washing equipment and vacuum cleaners to rid postal facilities of potentially dangerous dust.

The rest of the $1.1 billion would pay for a variety of measures, including replacing a New York postal facility that was destroyed in the World Trade Center terrorist attack, cleaning and testing postal facilities for anthrax, upgrading ventilation systems and other equipment to limit biohazards in airborne exhausts, and covering postal employees' medical expenses tied to the anthrax attacks.