The work of sorting incoming mail was resumed Tuesday afternoon after being suspended over the weekend to make room for safety upgrades being made to the sorting facilities.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released an updated health advisory statement on October 31, recommending a number of engineering and policy changes to protect employees from exposure to anthrax bacteria.
"When we took a look at the advisory," said Claude Rounds, vice president for administration, "it did have some suggestions for how we could improve workplace safety."
The Commons mailroom and the J-Building—the main sorting facilities for all mail that comes to the campus from the U.S. Postal Service—remained open this week, though sorting activities were curtailed to make room for the work of installing improved ventilation systems and HEPA filters.
"We felt that [the work] would require that the mailroom have some down time," Rounds said.
Mailroom staff were not allowed to comment on the situation.
Packages from other shipping organizations, including UPS and FedEx, were delivered to individual buildings on the main campus as usual. Staff was available in the Commons mailroom to facilitate package pickup if necessary.
The CDC advisory included recommendations intended to reduce the risk of cutaneous or inhalation anthrax exposure, especially where anthrax particles may become aerosolized and enter unprotected heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.
While the advisory was specifically intended for facilities with high-speed mail sorting machines—which RPI does not use—many of the suggestions were found to be applicable to the Institute’s facilities.
"It was an opportunity for us to take an extra step to facilitate employee safety," Rounds said.
The J-Building facility has since resumed the task of sorting mail that goes to the campus at large. On Tuesday evening, student mail was also being sorted in the J-Building and delivered to the Commons mailroom.
"We are back in the business of sorting mail," Rounds said.
Rounds said he had hoped work on the Commons facility would be completed by the end of the day on Tuesday but it was not possible because the new ventilation system had not been delivered as of Tuesday night. The J-Building will be used to sort student mail until the work at the Commons is complete.
Though reports of anthrax exposure around the country have been slowly increasing in number, nothing has happened at RPI to prompt these changes.
"There has not been an incident," Rounds said. "We just felt that it was an extra step we could take."
"We have no reason to believe that we are going to be a target," he said.
