Bellmawr, NJ–A New Jersey sectional center facility (SCF) that handles first class, catalogs, and other mail for most of southern New Jersey, has stopped delivering all bulk advertising mail and business class mail, but will ship out nearly all first class mail after another case of suspected anthrax developed there.
The Bellmawr regional mail facility in Camden Country was closed on Oct. 31, the second mail facility in New Jersey to be shut down.
This development comes just days after Direct Marketing Association officials tried to assure the public of the safety of advertising mail. But Jerry Cerasale, DMA senior vice president for government affairs, played down this development, saying that delivery of first class mail always gets top priority, especially in emergency situations.
Repeated calls to the Bellmawr facility and USPS headquarters in Washington, DC were not returned at deadline.
The postal worker with the new suspected case works as a mail processor in the Bellmawr facility, about 35 miles from the Hamilton postal facility that handled at least three anthrax-tainted letters.
New Jersey has five confirmed cases of anthrax and one other suspected case, most of which occurred at the Hamilton facility.
The Bellmawr plant serves 159 local post offices and delivers mail to 1.1 million locations in southern New Jersey and parts of Delaware.