Posted on 08/20/2003 6:25:49 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
HEADLINE: Anthrax Fallout Hits Postal Service; Anxious about costs if cavalier about people, managers at the Brentwood Road postal center sent 'volunteers' back into the formally closed facility to retrieve mail.
BYLINE: By Timothy W. Maier, INSIGHT
BODY: Management of the U.S. Postal Service processing and distribution center on Brentwood Road in Northeast Washington, which serves the nation's capital, not only ignored its own policies by failing to shut down operations immediately upon learning that the building tested positive for anthrax, but Insight has learned that managers also secretly sent postal volunteers into the facility on Oct. 22, 2001, to retrieve several tons of mail even though two workers at the facility had died from inhalation of anthrax spores.
These stunning revelations follow a flurry of federal lawsuits filed this year on behalf of several Brentwood postal employees demanding to know why they were not treated in the same efficient manner as victims on Capitol Hill who were exposed to anthrax when a terrorist letter containing the deadly virus was opened in the office of Sen. Tom Daschle [D-S.D.] on Oct. 14, 2001.
Leroy Richmond, age 58, filed a $100 million lawsuit in January against the postmaster general and Brentwood supervisors, charging management waited too long to shut down operations. Five deaf Brentwood employees filed a class-action lawsuit in May against the U.S. Postal Service for having failed to provide sign-language interpreters during the anthrax crisis. More recently, the public-interest law firm Judicial Watch sued to obtain internal records that will be used in an upcoming class-action lawsuit charging the U.S. Postal Service and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] in Atlanta with gross misconduct in the handling of suspected anthrax-laced mail.
The Brentwood post office has been closed officially since Oct. 21, 2001, when management confirmed mailmen Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr. had died from anthrax poisoning. Dozens of others claim they still feel sick. Postmaster General Jack Potter explained the decision to close on that date by saying, "The safety and health of our employees is our foremost concern. We absolutely do not want to risk placing any postal employees in danger. By assuring the safety of our employees, we can assure the safety of our customers."
For Brentwood employees it was two deaths too late. But it didn't stop management from recruiting volunteers unaware of the danger to enter the facility on the evening of Oct. 22 one day after the official closing to retrieve truckloads of mail, according to Insight sources. They did not wear biohazard suits, and it remains unclear whether Potter was aware of the plan and how many Brentwood supervisors approved and encouraged the nighttime "mail raid." The volunteers transferred the mail to several other facilities for processing. Some of the managers at those facilities were unaware the mail had come from Brentwood but, upon discovering its origin, quickly tested to see if anthrax spores were present, sources claim. The tested mail from Brentwood was deemed safe, but it could not be learned if all the other facilities tested for contamination or even were aware that mail had been removed from Brentwood on the night of Oct. 22. Since the FBI failed to secure the facility, the "mail raid" had encountered no obstacles.
Judicial Watch attorney Chris Farrell, who is handling the law firm's investigation into Brentwood, tells Insight, "They closed the building down but sent people walking back into it. People are dead. Doesn't the FBI want to preserve the scene? I can't comprehend it. You have the management talking about how they are all family, but then they solicit volunteers to enter the building! Why would they re-enter? It's inconceivable. Why would they do that?"
Asked about this, Postal Service spokesman Kristin Krathwohl says, "I don't believe that's the case," and questions why Insight would pursue a Brentwood story. When told that a series of lawsuits and postal employees are demanding answers, she promises someone will call back with an explanation. An hour later another spokesman, Teresa Redkin, calls to ask what prompted Insight to do the story. "Who is asking these questions?" she demands. "If the questions are in the lawsuits we can't comment." When told Insight is asking the questions for its readers, she promises to call back "if these things happened." Another hour later Redkin calls to say, "The questions you are asking [about the removal of mail] are in the scope of the lawsuits and we can't comment."
Even during congressional hearings last year Congress was not told of the incident. But Congress also was left in the dark that Brentwood management was aware that mail was leaking anthrax spores into the environment on Oct. 18, 2001, according to a day log or "diary" uncovered last year by Judicial Watch. The smoking-gun "diary" reportedly was written by a Brentwood facility plant manager, Timothy Haney. A log entry dated Oct. 18 notes that a private company called URS tested the machine used to process the mail sent to Daschle's office for anthrax. It tested "hot" for the deadly bacteria, with a second test confirming the positive finding. Haney has declined to comment since his "diary" was made public last year by Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch obtained a copy of the log and hundreds of internal documents from its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service. The records provide a disturbing behind-the-scenes look at how management reacted to the anthrax attack. The records also include Postal Service and CDC guidelines that were instituted in 1999 but not followed at Brentwood. The Postal Service can't comment on these records, either, because of pending litigation.
The evidence since has been provided to Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee. Lieberman in turn provided the documents to the General Accounting Office [GAO], which has expanded its ongoing probe into the anthrax mailing to include the Judicial Watch discoveries. Lieberman and Waxman plan to await the findings of the GAO probe before calling for congressional hearings.
Despite the confirmation of anthrax, Brentwood employees continued to report to work. Haney also still walked fearlessly on the plant floor as if nothing had happened, and his bravery earned him a promotion and a raise. There was no canvass of the neighborhood or follow-up to see if any mail delivered to residents nearby tested positive because the CDC claimed spores could not leak from a sealed envelope. Haney says in his diary that management discussed the possibility of relocating operations but decided to continue to operate until Oct. 21, when the CDC called and reported yet another test had indicated a positive hit. It was then that management evacuated the building nearly three days after the first confirmation and a delay that subjected about 2,200 employees at Brentwood to unnecessary risk including, perhaps, the two men who died.
Brentwood did not need a positive hit to close down, according to U.S. Postal Service guidelines which state that if any postal facility receives a "suspect letter" that facility should be shut down. Postal officials issued the policy on Oct. 19, 2001, four days after Daschle's office was struck. What has stunned employees is that as soon as the letter hit Daschle's office, postal employees knew the mail had come through the Brentwood processing center because Brentwood processes the mail for Capitol Hill.
Guidelines also were in place in October 1999 when a series of anthrax hoaxes prompted postal supervisors to issue emergency responses to facilities on how to handle mail allegedly containing anthrax, including instructing employees to stay in evacuation areas even if a letter is only suspected of containing anthrax. That was not done.
Brentwood management also ignored CDC's written guidelines. For example, an Oct. 12, 2001, CDC Health Advisory memo states that if anthrax is suspected employees are to "leave the area immediately." This was not done. CDC guidelines instruct postal management to shut off local fans or ventilation and air-handling systems, and to list all people who were in the room or area where anthrax is suspected. Again, none of that was done. In fact, the air blowers may have shot the anthrax into several rooms.
While CDC research at the time indicated anthrax could not escape from a sealed envelope, Chris Holmes, an anthrax expert and author of the related novel, Medusa Strain, disagrees. "The strain of anthrax was weaponized," he says. "The spores can be airborne and float through a part of a closed, sealed, envelope."
Washington Post editor Marilyn Thompson says in her book, The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed, that if the CDC had opened up an apparently disregarded e-mail it might have taken immediate action. According to that e-mail, a recent Canadian study discovered that anthrax contamination could spread easily and thoroughly with the opening of a single letter. The study, Thompson wrote, concluded that, "Envelopes with the open corners not specifically sealed could also pose a threat to individuals in the mail-handling system." Daschle's letter was taped with the corners apparently not sealed.
Prior to the lawsuits postal officials claimed they were unaware that the facility tested positive on Oct. 18, when the notation was made in Haney's log. A confident Potter even held a press conference that day inside Brentwood to assure employees the facility was safe. If there was such certainty, the employees argue, why did the hazardous-materials [HAZMAT] unit of the Fairfax County, Va., Fire Department arrive on that same date to test for anthrax? The HAZMAT team wore protective suits but apparently worked alongside postal employees who were not in protective gear.
While HAZMAT teams tested the facility and management held a series of staff meetings, confusion erupted among at least 25 deaf Brentwood employees who requested sign-language interpreters but were denied. These Brentwood employees are part of a national class-action lawsuit filed by Covington & Burling, James E. McCollum Jr. & Associates P.C. and the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. In the lawsuit, Covington partner Thomas S. Williamson Jr. charges the postal workers' civil rights were violated under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. They are seeking no monetary damages but want the court to rule that interpreters must be provided at all meetings. The employees received some follow-up information in a deaf-only meeting, but the information was "not complete or timely," Williamson says.
When the suit was filed, deaf plaintiff Bruce Hubbard, who has worked for the postal service for 30 years, said he was scared because "I did not know what was happening." When Hubbard wrote a note to ask what was occurring, a supervisor responded in writing, "Two people died." Employees were directed to Judiciary Square, where doctors were handing out Cipro, a prescription antibiotic, and doing nasal swabs, but the deaf employees had no clue why they were being asked to participate in this.
In fact, many employees both deaf and hearing did not take the Cipro because there was no coordinated effort or transportation provided for the Brentwood workers as there was for those who were exposed on Capitol Hill, Farrell says. He suggests postal authorities should have drawn blood for testing, as was done on Capital Hill, because that would have been a more accurate way to see if others had contracted the disease. Asked why Farrell thought authorities in charge of Brentwood did not act as they did with Capitol Hill employees, Farrell replied, "Money."
Haney had been singled out for criticism by his supervisors for shutting down during Sept. 11, 2001, Farrell says. "Haney told employees it cost $500,000 to close that day and that he was not going to do that again," Farrell says. On top of this the U.S. Postal Service was facing an $11 billion debt. Potter, who took over the helm of the Postal Service in June 2001, was determined to cut costs by some $900 million. He had his work cut out for him: The Postal Service lost more than $1.6 billion in 2001, but he cut it to $676 million in 2002.
Even so, losses are due in part to the kind of expenditures called into question by a recent inspector-general's report that discovered the U.S. Postal Service spent more than $40 million since 1996 to sponsor Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. Other expenditures included $3,656 on tickets to New York Yankees baseball games between 1999 and 2002, $1,936 for New York Giants football tickets between 1998 and 2002, $632,000 for Chicago Bears football tickets between 1998 and 2002, $630,000 for Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball tickets between 1998 and 2002, $338,000 for University of Notre Dame college-football tickets between 2001 and 2002 and $79,000 for Ryder Cup Tickets in 2001.
So did Brentwood management risk the health of their employees for the sake of the bottom line? If so, then why didn't New Jersey post offices do the same? Brentwood employees believe money and racism combined to keep their facility open. Of the approximately 2,200 workers at Brentwood, 97 percent are black. Judicial Watch charged racism by filing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC] complaint on behalf of 200 postal workers at Brentwood. The EEOC complaint alleges the government discriminated against Brentwood's predominately black workforce by failing immediately to administer antibiotics after they were exposed. In comparison, the predominantly white staff members in the offices of Daschle and Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-Vt.] were treated promptly as doctors arrived on the scene immediately with medication. "That's fine," Farrell says. "Nothing wrong with that. But I know Brentwood people who were exposed and sent back to work the next day."
In hindsight, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says he wishes the Army lab at Fort Detrick, Md., had briefed him prior to Oct. 23 about the potency of anthrax. "If I had known it sooner, we would have done something differently at Brentwood," Thompson explained after Curseen and Morris died. Brentwood employees wish Thompson had read the emergency-response-plan memos from 1999 to 2001, where one word stands out in all those internal memos when anthrax is suspected. That word is evacuate.
Probably worth it.
Other expenditures included $3,656 on tickets to New York Yankees baseball games between 1999 and 2002, $1,936 for New York Giants football tickets between 1998 and 2002,
No biggie
$632,000 for Chicago Bears football tickets between 1998 and 2002,
What???
$630,000 for Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball tickets between 1998 and 2002,
What!!!
$338,000 for University of Notre Dame college-football tickets between 2001 and 2002
WHAT!!!!
Those are BIG blocks of season tickets. I wonder if the purchasing postal employees got kickbacks for these purchases.
I've got a little time here -( A great grandson is enroute sometime today,and I'd like to escape arcane discussions of "centimeters dilated", "broken water", and other things that are far more than I wish to know !)-so I'll cover some of the material I missed earlier.
Where I quote, the passage is from "Demon in the Freezer" by Richard Preston.
10/25/01 Geisbert tests a sterilized sample of the Daschle anthrax.X-rays, and other tests show two materials present: silica and oxygen...glass.
"The silicon was powdered so finely that under Geisbert's electron microscope it had looked like fried-egg gunk dripping off the spores." Geisbert calls his boss, Peter Jahrling on a secure STU phone and says: "Pete ! There's glass in the anthrax."
(There is a brief discussion about the commercially available glass.) "...superfine powdered glass,known as silica nanopowder,which has industrial uses.The grains of this type of glass are very small.If an anthrax spore was an orange,then these particles of glass would be grains of sand clinging to the orange.The glass was slippery and smooth,and it might have been treated so that it would repel water.It caused the spores to crumble apart,to pass more easily through the holes in the envelopes ( NB: He's referring to the pores in the paper of the envelopes.)and fly everywhere, filling the Hart Senate office building and the Brentwood and Hamilton mail-sorting facilities like a gas." By the way, the bacteria used in anthrax simulant/surrogate preparations is Bacillus globigii- a harmless relative of Anthracis.( I goofed earlier.)
Discovered? Woah! There must have been some hard core sluthing on that one! Isn't this Karla Corcoran, the Inspector General who was just replaced (resigned) due to multiple big bucks expenditures on "team building" junkets to posh resorts for high level staffers? The same Karla Corcoran who reportedly abused employees? Yup, sure is.
I'm admittedly biased; I love road racing. But the money for the USPS team is well spent. Lance even shows up in commercials for other products in his Postal Service jersy. There are also some nice parallels. If Lance can come back from cancer after being given a 40% chance, perhaps the Postal Service can come back from an entrenched management that would make such seemingly stupid decisions like those that were made at Brentwood.
The nanopowder technology has been around for a while. In fact, you can buy high-purity nano-sized silicon dioxide from PRED Materials 60 E 42nd St, suite 1465,NYC, NY 10165-and that's only one source.
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