Standing inside a cavernous mail-sorting plant at the Anchorage airport over the weekend, Sen. Ted Stevens and a top official of the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a new device designed to test letters in Alaska for anthrax.
The Biohazard Detection System at the mail-processing plant on Postmark Drive is just one of many such systems being installed around the country in a billion-dollar effort to prevent anthrax attacks using the U.S. mail like the ones the nation saw in 2001.
About two dozen people got sick that year after anthrax showed up in the mail and the victims were exposed to the spore-forming bacteria, according to press accounts. At least five people died. Several of the victims were postal workers.
Tom Day, vice president of engineering for the Postal Service, flew to Alaska from Washington, D.C., to attend the unveiling Saturday in Anchorage and thank Stevens.
The Postal Service, a self-supporting operation, doesn't often ask Congress for money, Day said. But after the anthrax attacks, it did. Stevens was instrumental in securing the millions of dollars it took to deploy the detection system, Day said.
"Obviously, we're very grateful to Senator Stevens," he said.
The Biohazard Detection System works by hooking onto a mail-handling machine, in place at large sorting centers. The machine, a conveyor belt of sorts called the Advanced Facer Canceller System, takes in all "collection mail" -- primarily letters that come from mailboxes around town or the blue Postal Service boxes. The machine shuffles the letters to make them face the right way and stamps them with a bar code and date.
The Biohazard Detection System involves placing over part of the conveyor a small hood, where continuous air samples are drawn and tested for anthrax using DNA matching.
Metered mail -- circulars or "junk mail," for example -- do not go through the detection system. Neither do packages.
Mark Daly, the Postal Service's emergency preparedness manager for Alaska, said it is collection mail that poses the biggest threat when it comes to anthrax. Unlike metered mail, it is not always clear where the letters come from, he said. And collection mail is pinched when it goes through the Advanced Facer Canceller System, increasing the chances that if there is anthrax in a letter, the deadly spores will be puffed into the air. That happened in 2001, Daly said.
Anthrax has never been found in the mail in Alaska, but there are regular scares, Daly said. Almost daily an unidentified substance or powder is found at the Postmark Drive sorting center, and the immediate vicinity has to be cordoned off until workers figure out what it is and where it came from. Usually it's nothing -- flour, sand or some other harmless substance, he said. But about once a month the fire department has to be called just to be sure.
Daly said the Anchorage plant probably has a higher than average number of false alarms because of the large volume of food products shipped through the mail in Alaska.
About 750 Biohazard Detection Systems -- about half of the ultimate goal -- have been installed at Postal Service plants nationwide. The units have processed about 13 billion pieces of mail so far and have never recorded a false alarm, according to Day.
If the system detects anthrax, an audible alarm sounds, alerting workers to evacuate. It is then up to local authorities to secure the area, treat the victims and launch an investigation.
"If you don't have a good plan locally, the technology just fails," Day said.
Municipal health and emergency officials, several of whom were on hand Saturday, have practiced with postal workers in the city on what to do in the event of an anthrax alarm. The city has stockpiled medications to treat anthrax victims.
Stevens said the machine does not take the burden of being cautious about suspicious mail off the public.
"A letter that you don't know about -- don't open it," he said.
Mostly, the detection system is aimed at protecting the people on the front line, Stevens said. "The people who were most exposed (in 2001) were the people in the postal system," he said.
Louis Mifsud, a postal worker in Anchorage for more than 21 years who sometimes runs the conveyor that sorts the collection mail, said the detection system gives him peace of mind. "I think it's great because now we finally have something that will save lives."
Daily News reporter Tataboline Brant can be reached at tbrant@adn.com or 257-4321.
