Conn. Post Office Awaits Powder Results

WALLINGFORD, Conn. - Angry and frightened postal workers awaited test results Tuesday on a mysterious powder found at the same mail distribution center where anthrax was discovered in 2001.

The coarse, gray powder was found Monday night, leaking out of an envelope addressed to the Republican National Committee. It was discovered about the time a white powder later identified as the lethal poison ricin was found in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office in Washington.

The Wallingford center remained open Tuesday while the powder was tested by the state Department of Public Health, and no workers were reported sickened. Some of the powder was sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"At this point in time, we do not know what substances the powder may contain, and there is no information at this time to connect this substance to the reports of ricin found in Washington, D.C.," said Dr. J. Robert Galvin, state health commissioner.

Investigators believe the envelope, a business reply envelope that did not require postage, was mailed from somewhere in Connecticut. The amount of powder was not disclosed.

"Absolutely, we're concerned," said Keith Larsen, 38, a mail handler at the center. "I mean, they lied to us in the past, so we don't know what's going on in there."

Anthrax spores were found at the Wallingford center in the fall of 2001. A 94-year-old Oxford woman was one of the five people nationwide who died of anthrax during that fall's unsolved attacks, and investigators believe she got the bacteria from mail that passed through the center.

Three initial tests of the center in 2001 came up negative before a fourth, more sophisticated test found lethal levels of anthrax. The center never closed, a decision workers criticized at the time.

John Dirzius, president of the American Postal Workers union local for Wallingford, said he agreed with the decision not to close the center Tuesday.

"Of course we have those concerns, but we don't know what we are dealing with here," Dirzius said. He said about 150 workers were on the job when the powder was found.

The worker who discovered it was wearing gloves, a voluntary precaution, officials said.

"Nobody needed medical treatment," said Carl Walton, a spokesman for the Postal Service. "They washed up and went home."

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Associated Press Writer Matt Apuzzo in Hartford contributed to this report.