Building Gets Third Anthrax Treatment

Workers began a third attempt Friday to destroy residual anthrax spores in the heating and ventilation system of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Technicians pumped steam into the system to raise humidity, but at first, as in a past attempt, it remained below optimum levels, which were reached in a successful test Thursday.

A spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency said that after some “normal engineering adjustments,” anthrax-killing chlorine dioxide started pouring in just after dark. The process was expected to be completed before dawn Saturday.

“It’ll continue through the process until we reach the saturation that we need and the duration that we need to kill the anthrax spores,” said Lt. Dan Nichols, a Capitol Police spokesman.

“We’re picking up now where we left off a couple of weeks ago when we had difficulty getting the humidity up,” said Richard Rupert, on-site coordinator for the EPA. “We made a lot of modifications to the system.”

While other types of work were being done in the building to remove effects of October’s mailed anthrax attack, Rupert said he hoped this would be the final fumigation using toxic gas.

Once the fumigation process is completed, another 72 hours of testing probably will be necessary before the building is declared safe, experts said.

Officials have refused to speculate when the building might reopen. Two previous attempts to clean the building failed to eliminate the potentially deadly spores.

The building has been closed since Oct. 17 because of an anthrax-laced letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

The letter opened in Daschle’s office was one of a number of such letters sent to government and media targets nationwide after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.

Five people died and 13 have been infected with anthrax since the beginning of October, but none of them were on Capitol Hill.

At the Federal Reserve, follow-up tests on about 600 pieces of mail in a bin that tested positive in early December found no signs of anthrax.

The mail was tested “piece by piece, page by page, much more thoroughly, looking to try to find out what the original source was,” Fed spokesman David Skidmore said Friday. No indication of the source was found.