A federal judge has ruled that Manhattan’s Morgan Processing and Distribution Center will remain open during a decontamination process, thwarting an attempt by a postal union to shut it during the cleaning.
According to reports, U.S. District Judge John Keenan did rule the US Postal Service to test the James A. Farley General Post Office, which is a block away from the Morgan Center. The two facilities are connected by a tunnel.
On Oct. 29 the New York Chapter of the American Postal Workers Union filed suit to close the plant, which contains mail-sorting machines that were contaminated by anthrax-laced letters.
As part of his ruling, Judge Keenan said that “the balance of hardships tips decidedly in favor of the defendant,” the USPS, reports said. Postal representatives testified that closing the facility would result in workers losing their paychecks, and would disrupt the flow of mail in and out of New York City.
Published estimates put the cost of decontaminating the Morgan Center at $5 million.
In a related development, four more U.S. postal facilities in New Jersey have tested positive for anthrax, all of which were served by the Trenton mail processing and distribution center known to have handled anthrax-laden letters, according to wire service reports.
The four new sites had all been served by a now closed regional facility outside Trenton in Hamilton Township, which has been at the epicenter of anthrax outbreaks responsible for five confirmed and two suspected anthrax cases in the state.
But a U.S. District Court Judge in Camden, NJ ordered the mail processing plant in Bellmawr, NJ that had been exposed to anthrax reopened while an arbitrator tried to resolve the dispute between the USPS and the South Jersey American Postal Workers Union. The labor group had wanted the facility closed after a cleaning crew mistakenly cleaned a machine that had not been exposed to anthrax spores.
