No new anti-anthrax measures planned by local post offices

Friday, May 10, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Las Vegas postal officials say they will not increase measures at already cautious operations locally after 20 pieces of mail at the Federal Reserve in Washington tested positive for anthrax during initial screenings.

"Initial testing is not always accurate," said U.S. Postal Service Las Vegas spokesman Vic Fenimore after the announcement Thursday that tainted mail was found in a mobile trailer stationed in a courtyard at the Federal Reserve's main downtown Washington building.

"Initial tests found what was believed to be anthrax at a Reno post office in October, and after more extensive testing, it turned out not to be anthrax."

Extensive tests of Las Vegas post offices after the anthrax scare in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found no traces of the deadly bacteria.

Fenimore said that even before the anthrax scare last year, the post office made available to employees face masks and latex gloves to guard against inhaling or becoming exposed to all forms of dust particles.

After Sept. 11, there was widespread use of those protective devices. Today, just a few mail handlers still wear gloves and masks. They are not mandatory for use in postal facilities, Fenimore said.

"It is business as usual for us today," Fenimore said.

The affected Fed letters were "routine and business mail and did not have any of the characteristics identified by the FBI as suspicious," the Fed said in a statement released Thursday.

The tainted mail was discovered on Tuesday. Some of it was addressed to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, the agency confirmed, noting that it stopped distributing mail to its buildings that day. However, the secure mail facility at the Fed is continuing to receive mail, officials said.