Powder Investigated at Conn. Mail Center

Feb 3, 2003
By MATT APUZZO

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A postal worker found an unidentified powder in an envelope addressed to the Republican National Committee, and inspectors were investigating, officials said Tuesday.

The employee at the Wallingford postal sorting center found the gray, sandy powder leaking out of an envelope late Monday night, police and postal officials said.

The discovery came at about the same time that a white power was found in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office in Washington that tested positive for the poison ricin in preliminary findings.

The Wallingford center is the same Connecticut postal facility where anthrax spores were found in 2001. A 94-year-old Oxford woman, Ottilie Lundgren, died after inhaling the bacteria, one of five people who died nationwide in the anthrax attacks that fall. Investigators believe she got anthrax through mail that passed through the Wallingford sorting center.

Preliminary test results on the new Wallingford sample were inconclusive and officials took the powder to the state Department of Public Health laboratory in Hartford for further testing. The results were expected late Tuesday morning.

"It could potentially be a hoax. There's really no explanation I can think of for a grayish powder to be in that kind of an envelope," said Hal Stephens, a supervisor for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Connecticut.

Investigators believe the letter, a business reply envelope that did not require postage, was mailed from somewhere in Connecticut.

The powder in Frist's office apparently was delivered through the mail system. More definitive tests were expected later Tuesday.

The worker who found the powder was wearing gloves, officials said.

"All the employees are fine," said Carl Walton, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Connecticut. "Nobody needed medical treatment. They washed up and went home."

Matt Fritz, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said there was no apparent environmental risk at the facility. DEP officials cleared the scene at about 4 a.m.

The facility remained open Tuesday morning, police said.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040203/D80FQ3TG0.html