Case Studies

Washington, DC & Hamilton, NJ

The Issue: Anthrax Contamination

The Solution: Facility Decontamination with ClO₂ Gas

Following successful fumigation of the Daschle Suite and its HVAC systems in the Hart Senate Office Building (HSOB), Sabre was retained as a prime contractor by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to, among other tasks, design and oversee construction of ClO₂ fumigation systems used to treat the Curseen Morris Postal Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) in Washington, DC and Trenton Postal P&DC in Hamilton Township, NJ.

The USPS Curseen-Morris and Trenton Postal P&DCs were both contaminated extensively with anthrax spores when tainted letters sent to US Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy on Capitol Hill passed through the facilities. Neither letter was opened within the confines of these structures. However, the aggressive action of mail processing equipment moving the letters through the mail sorting process resulted in a sufficient number of spores being released through pores in letter envelopes to cause a number of fatalities and illnesses among workers inside the facilities.

Gaseous ClO₂ fumigation was selected early on as the most appropriate, if not only feasible, remedy for both of these facilities. This selection was made in large part due to the enormous size and complexity of these buildings. The Curseen-Morris P&DC had over 14 million cubic feet (ft³) of occupied space, and the Trenton P&DC over 6 million ft³. It was recognized that, because ClO₂ is a true gas at standard temperature and pressure conditions, each of these large facilities, including their accompanying HVAC systems, could be treated in a single fumigant application using the process developed by Sabre at the HSOB.

Sabre's role in the USPS Curseen-Morris and Trenton P&DC projects was broad-based. Sabre had responsibilities for planning, designing, performing and evaluating the efficacy of fumigation operations. Sabre's proprietary ClO₂ generators and processes were also utilized in both of these large-scale projects. At the Curseen-Morris P&DC, Sabre participated extensively in development of the Remedial Action Plan (RAP), Sampling and Analysis Plan (SAP), site-specific Health and Safety Plan (HASP), Emergency Response Plan (ERP) and Ambient Air Monitoring Plan (AAMP) for the facility. At the Trenton P&DC, Sabre was solely responsible for developing these documents and obtaining their approval by all relevant regulatory authorities and the independent ECC assembled to review both operational and environmental sampling data following the project.

Both USPS P&DC facilities were successfully fumigated by Sabre, with the Curseen-Morris P&DC being completed in 2002 and the Trenton P&DC being done in 2003. The respective ECCs for each facility concluded that the single ClO₂ gas application had been effective in eliminating all traces of anthrax contamination from the structures, which were then subsequently reopened.