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Politics : Homeland Security -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (720)	12/7/2001 4:13:32 PM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 827

Mail being irradiated for anthrax catches fire at New Jersey plant; 90 pounds of mail destroyed nj.com The Associated Press 12/7/01 12:59 PM BRIDGEPORT, N.J. (AP) -- Batches of mail being treated with radiation to eliminate possible anthrax contamination caught fire, apparently because some material overheated, officials said Friday. Hundreds of large envelopes and magazines -- 90 pounds in all -- were destroyed during two small fires, one Thursday and one early Friday, the Postal Service said. "Our engineers believe both incidents are linked to material present in the mail which cause overheating during radiation exposure," said John Gilbert, spokesman for Ion Beam Applications, which operates the plant where the irradiation is being done. "We feel these two incidents are regrettable but expected." There were no injuries or damage to the plant. Since mid-November, the plant has been irradiating mail quarantined from the Hamilton Post Office, which closed in October after the office was found to have handled at least four contaminated letters. All quarantined letters were sanitized last month, and the plant is now handling magazines and large envelopes, Postal Service spokesman Carl Walton said. Officials declined to specify what materials might have overheated to cause the fires, saying they did not want to give information to potential saboteurs.