I thank Councilmember Vincent Orange, Chair of the Committee on Government Relations of the Council of the District of Columbia for holding a very important Public Roundtable on the decontamination of the Joseph Curseen, Jr. and Thomas Morris, Jr. Processing and Distribution Center (Curseen-Morris facility), formerly known as the Brentwood Postal Facility. Such hearings serve the very useful purpose of consolidating the information of this unprecedented cleanup and allowing those of us with a stake in the cleanup to raise our concerns about the process.

The National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees (NAPFE) is the nation’s oldest and largest independent black-led labor union. We represent thousands of postal workers nationwide. Here in the District, we represent hundreds of workers at the former Brentwood facility. Throughout its 89-year history, NAPFE has worked to ensure the rights of postal and federal workers to work, free from discrimination, in a safe and secure environment.

We believe, that the challenge in this unprecedented cleanup is not only to decontaminate the Curseen-Morris facility in a safe manner that protects the surrounding neighborhood and health of the workers that will return to the facility, it is also to actively address the concerns of postal workers in new ways. This unprecedented attack on the lives of postal workers calls for a change from the old ways of doing business. The United States Postal Service (USPS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are facing a trust gap regarding their earlier reaction to the anthrax exposure at the former Brentwood facility. In hindsight, given the science at the time of the attack, both the USPS and the CDC acted in a reasonable manner. However, because the medical knowledge at the time was insufficient to properly protect postal workers at the facility, the bar is now extremely high for the USPS and the CDC as they work to decontaminate the facility and study the health of postal workers.

During a July 26, 2002 hearing before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, the USPS pledged to reopen the former Brentwood facility only when absolutely safe. At that hearing, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) called for the CDC to perform an epidemiological study on the postal workers and residents affected by the anthrax contamination of the former Brentwood facility. The USPS has worked hard to make sure that the decontamination will be completely effective and done in a matter that protects the surrounding environment. We understand that the CDC will perform an epidemiological study. But, as the Committee heard on the November 1 hearing, the safe decontamination of the Curseen-Morris facility and an epidemiological study of those affected is only part of the equation.

Postal Workers and the surrounding community are also dealing with the trauma of being victims of such an unprecedented attack. Postal Workers found themselves inadvertent warriors in the terrorist attacks on America. Not only did they struggle mightily to get the mail to customers after the attacks of September 11th when the business of the nation came to a relative halt, they found themselves at personal risk as unknown terrorist or terrorists used the mail to deliver deadly anthrax. They are grieving for their fallen coworkers, Joseph Curseen, Jr. and Thomas Morris, Jr., recovering from anthrax-related illnesses and suffering the side effects of taking powerful prophylactic drugs. Now, they must prepare to return to the scene of such devastation. At present, they feel that their concerns are being subjugated by a focus on the science of the decontamination rather than the challenge of returning to a facility that scientists once believed could not be decontaminated after such an attack.

Our members are telling us that they are concerned that their health and safety, including their mental health, is not as important to the USPS as returning to the convenience of using the Curseen-Morris facility. They are concerned that the USPS and CDC will respond only to health issues that scientists agree were caused directly by the anthrax exposure and ignore symptoms that defy easy explanation but that did not occur until after the exposure to anthrax. They are concerned that the USPS is blithely referring medical complaints to the CDC without having an institutionalize system in place to track complaints to the CDC and how they might affect the worker’s ability to do their job. They are concerned about becoming guinea pigs in a CDC study where they will have very little input on how their medical information is acquired and studied.

They feel that mysterious illnesses and deaths have been dismissed as non-anthrax related without further explanation. They feel that their reports of side effects are being summarily dismissed with the explanation that everyone is suffering from side effects. Such a response is wholly unacceptable. The USPS must do more.

The USPS and the CDC must work hand in hand to help workers deal with the challenge of returning to a location where they were attacked by an unseen and deadly toxin. The USPS must not hide behind old procedures in order to isolate itself from the heath problems and concerns of its employees. It must realize that these are special circumstances that need a different response.

Both the USPS and the CDC made mistakes at the beginning of the anthrax exposure. They are now bringing all they have learned and available technology to correct those mistakes. It would be a further mistake to now ignore the emotional toll that this experience has had on their workers without putting procedures in place to address them.

I thank Councilmember Orange for this opportunity to place these concerns of our membership on the record of a very important hearing that contributes to the full disclosure of all the facets involved in the decontamination of the former Brentwood facility.