AMY WINKLER

French junior Luis Carbajal, right, hands letters to a United States Postal worker yesterday afternoon in the post office at the Student Union Memorial Center. Mail sent to the university is screened at least twice before being delivered to campus.

Wednesday October 17, 2001

No suspicious-looking mail has been sent to the UA since Sept. 11 attacks

The university's mail is screened at least twice before being delivered on campus, so UA community members should not be concerned about anthrax or other biological weapons that may be sent through the mail, UA officials said.

As recently as Monday, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle's office received a letter containing anthrax, deadly bacteria that have caused at least one death since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Sharon Kha, university spokeswoman, said about 400,000 pieces of mail go through the University of Arizona's mailroom every month and each package and letter is screened at least twice.

Kha said that, in most cases, suspicious mail may have too much postage, no return address, be postmarked from a different location than the return address, be addressed only to the UA or have wires poking out of it.

"The campus mailroom has been screening mail for over a decade," she said. "However, most heavily on everyone's mind right now is the anthrax issue."

All mail sent to the university is screened by the U.S. Postal Service before being delivered to the university's mailroom, which is located off campus.

University mailroom employees then screen the mail before it is delivered to campus buildings.

Kha said the UA mailroom has not received any suspicious mail since Sept. 11, but as of two weeks ago, mailroom employees have been required to wear latex gloves when handling mail as a precautionary measure.

Steve Holland, director of Risk Management, said the community should feel safe because mailroom employees are trained in screening mail and can identify suspicious situations. He said that even before the recent anthrax cases, mailroom employees inspected mail very carefully.

"They look at it as precautions today that are no different from before," he said. "Nothing has changed in that respect."

Gregory Dixon, a political science graduate associate, said the chances of a large-scale bioterrorist attack are very small because the agents are not easy to manufacture and deliver.

"Realistically, there's nothing we can do to prevent bioterrorism 100 percent," he said. "The most productive thing we could do is to make people aware of suspicious packaging."

Dixon said there has been some panic over white, powdery substances because of the recent anthrax reports, but there are other issues the UA community should worry about rather than bioterrorism.

"UA isn't a good target because we're not a national symbol · people at UA should take suspicious packaging seriously but not have to not worry about their individual safety," he said.

Tyler Wager contributed to this article.