Engelhard Drive will be site
of temporary postal center
By jennifer dome
Staff Writer
MONROE — The U.S. Postal Service announced last Thursday that the temporary mail distribution facility slated to open in the township will be located at 24 Engelhard Drive.
The 221,300-square-foot facility will house approximately 500 employees, and will control mail destined for delivery in zip codes that begin with the digits 085 and 086, a press release from the postal service states.
Discoveries of anthrax at the U.S. Postal Processing and Distribution Center on Route 130 in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, resulted in that site’s closing in October 2001. Although the postal service relocated its carrier and processing operation to other sites, it has also been looking for suitable places to base its operations while decontamination takes place in Hamilton, postal service spokesman Dan Quinn said.
The postal service signed a three-year lease with the South Middlesex Development Company, LLC, in order to use the new facility in Monroe. The cost of leasing the building was not released.
Since the Hamilton facility closed last October, mail has been processed in Edison, South River and Kearny, postal officials said. These sites will continue to process outgoing operations, officials said
"Service to this area has been improving steadily and we are moving closer to the levels we were at before the anthrax scare last fall," said Vito Cetta, district manager and executive in charge for the postal service in central New Jersey. "The interim facility will offer us additional operational efficiencies, and will help us to continue to improve service."
Approximately 500,000 pieces of third-class business mail was left inside the Hamilton center at the time of the anthrax scare, Carl Walton, of the central New Jersey district, reported last fall. All of the mail was destinating mail, meaning it was being sent to zip codes beginning with 085 and 086 in the Hamilton area.
These pieces of mail were not expected to be contaminated, since those with anthrax were being sent outside of the area, Walton said. However, since the pieces were inside the facility at the time, they had to remain stagnant until they could be decontaminated, he said.
According to the Associated Press, the Hamilton building is in line for decontamination after the Brentwood facility, located in Washington, D.C., is completed. Work on the Brentwood site is expected to begin shortly.
After last fall’s anthrax scare, five people died and 13 others became ill. In New Jersey, five confirmed anthrax infections and two suspected cases occurred, though there were no fatalities, according to the Associated Press. All but one case in the state involved postal workers.
No arrests have been made in relation to the anthrax attacks, despite the posting of a $2.5 million reward for information leading to an arrest.