South River postal site tests negative for anthrax

By jennifer dome
Staff Writer

South River postal
site tests negative for anthrax
By jennifer dome
Staff Writer

SOUTH RIVER — Anthrax tests taken last week at five area U.S. Postal Service sites, including one in South River, have all turned out negative, Postal Service spokeswoman Diane Todd said Tuesday.

The testing was conducted after a small amount of anthrax was found in a mailbox in Princeton earlier this month. Officials tested facilities they said could have handled the mail found in Princeton, Todd said.

The interim distribution center on Brickplant Road in South River was tested as a precautionary measure because it is part of the network that may have handled the mail, Todd said.

Testing was completed at the Postal Service’s Eatontown and Edison sites last week, Todd said. The Princeton post office in West Windsor, as well as a facility in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, were also tested, she said.

The employees at the South River center continued to work during the testing process. The center had been closed in recent years but reopened in November after discoveries of anthrax at the U.S. Postal Processing and Distribution Center on Route 130 south in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, closed that site and its operations had to be relocated.

Some of the postal employees from the Hamilton site, who have since been working at facilities in South River, Eatontown and Edison, will soon move into a new temporary facility in Monroe, where they will remain until decontamination procedures in Hamilton are complete.

The Monroe facility, a 221,300-square-foot building on Englehard Drive, is owned by Matrix Development Group, and is being leased to the U.S. Postal Service for three years.

The postal employees are expected to begin using the site Oct. 1, according to a representative of Beckerman Public Relations, which represents the Cranbury-based Matrix.