House office building where anthrax was detected reopens

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Longworth House office building, where traces of anthrax were found last week, reopened Monday morning as preparations to decontaminate the closed Hart Senate Office building began, according to the Capitol Hill police.

On Monday evening, environmental workers will use an antibacterial foam to clean two areas in the Hart building where anthrax traces were found, said Capitol Hill police spokesman Dan Nichols.

It is the same method used to decontaminate infected areas in the Dirksen and Ford office buildings.

A staffer for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, opened an anthrax-laden letter at his office in the Hart building, three weeks ago. Environmental Protection Agency officials last week recommended decontaminating the Hart building using a chlorine dioxide gas.

But according to EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Piper, a peer review of the plan by government agencies and other scientific experts raised concern about the effectiveness of the gas on such a large building and suggested more time should be taken to look at the proposal. EPA officials said last week the Hart building is 10 million cubic feet.

Anthrax traces were discovered in four areas of the Hart building: the fifth and sixth floors in the southeast corridor where the letter was opened in Daschle's office, the stairwell between the eighth and ninth floor in that corridor where Daschle staffers walked, the filter of the air conditioning system located on the ninth floor, and a freight elevator bank on the first floor in the southwest corner of the building.

Nichols said the stairwell between the eighth and ninth floor and the freight elevator bank will be decontaminated with foam Monday.

Meanwhile, the Longworth office building reopened at 8 a.m. Monday. Three offices in the building where anthrax traces were found -- those of Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana., Rush Holt, D-New Jersey, and John Baldacci, D-Maine -- remained closed and sealed off.

Staffers returning to the Longworth building Monday were given a "Welcome Back to Longworth" question-and-answer sheet, telling them no contaminated mail has been found as well as providing instructions for handling unopened mail found in the offices.