Doubts On Senate Cleanup

Environmental workers installed chemically resistant pipe and barriers Thursday to fumigate the Senate's Hart Office Building despite a lack of confidence among some senators about the government's broader plan on anthrax.

The White House, meanwhile, announced it will begin receiving mail for the first time since the threat of bioterrorism shut down service weeks ago.

"We're getting ready for fumigation. ... We're still on track," said Richard Rupert, the Environmental Protection Agency's on-scene coordinator for the Capitol Hill anthrax cleanup.

Workers plan to begin using chlorine dioxide gas over the weekend to disinfect the suite of offices in the Hart building used by Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., the majority leader. Outside, two of the EPA's three specially equipped vans have been humming with crews of scientists, air-monitoring gear and computers.

"The goal is to, as much as possible, make the Daschle suite gas-tight," Rupert said.

Senators with offices in the Hart building were skeptical of EPA's handling of the unprecedented series of anthrax scares, however. EPA has lead responsibility for issues related to environmental cleanup of hazardous materials and weapons of mass destruction but gets help from more than a dozen other federal agencies along with state and local emergency responders.

"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 EPA Administrator Christie 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.

Whitman told the panel her agency's goal is to return Capitol Hill buildings to a condition with "no viable anthrax spores" left in them. She added there "might be a feeling that, in fact, there are levels at which it might not be a threat" if minute traces of anthrax remained.

So far anthrax has killed five people and sickened others since it was diagnosed in early October as the cause of a Florida photo editor's death. Its first appearance in the Hart building was shortly afterward in a letter to Daschle.

Decontamination of Daschle's suite could begin by Friday night, Lt. Dan Nichols of the Capitol Police said Wednesday. Rupert said the building could be reopened in two to four weeks.

"No one's going into the books; no one's going into the papers; no one's going into the drawers; so how can we be sure (spores are) not there?" Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, demanded of Whitman on Wednesday.

She repeatedly explained that everyone was in uncharted territory.

"It is the biggest challenge we've ever faced," she said. "We are writing the book as we go along. ... We have been as comprehensive as we believe is necessary."

At the White House, Press secretary Ari Fleischer said Thursday that mail will be delivered to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as early as Friday. Mail service was halted shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Trace amounts of anthrax were found at a mail-sorting facility for the presidential complex but not at the White House itself.

Fleischer would not discuss security measures. "Suffice it to say it will be rigorous," he said.

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