Anthrax cleanup has its doubters

WASHINGTON -- The government's plan to rid the Hart Senate Office Building of deadly anthrax bacteria inspires little confidence, senators with offices there told EPA chief Christie Whitman.

"The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't have very much expertise on this," Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Wednesday at a hearing on the progress of the cleanup. "They don't. They need experts."

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who chaired the hearing, told Whitman the agency should set clear standards for determining when the building and other Senate office locations would be rid of anthrax spores.

Mikulski also said she was troubled by the lack of a central federal command to oversee and coordinate the government's response to the anthrax scares that spread from Capitol Hill to the U.S. Postal Service. It was the deaths of two Washington postal workers who inhaled spores from mail they were handling that spread dread across the nation.

So far anthrax has killed five people and sickened others since it was diagnosed in early October as the cause of a Sun tabloid photo editor's death in Boca Raton. Its first appearance in the Hart building was shortly afterward in a letter to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., the majority leader.

Decontamination of Daschle's suite could begin by Friday night. Richard Rupert, the EPA's on-scene coordinator for the Capitol Hill anthrax cleanup, said the building could be reopened in two to four weeks.

Workers will use chlorine dioxide gas to disinfect Daschle's office.

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