3 Senate buildings close; tests show ricin

An unidentified white powder turned up at a Connecticut postal center.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Three Senate office buildings were closed today after a suspicious white powder, apparently delivered through the mail system, was found near the Senate majority leader's office. Officials said several preliminary tests -- but not all of them -- were positive for ricin, a deadly poison.
More definitive test results were expected later today.
"This is a criminal action," said Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., whose staff discovered the white powder in their Dirksen Senate Office Building mailroom Monday afternoon.
Dirksen and the other two main Senate office buildings were to be closed today for officials to check other mail in the buildings, but the Capitol was to remain open with the Senate convening this morning as scheduled.
People decontaminated
At least 16 people on the floor were decontaminated, and others who might have been in the area were urged to contact Senate officials, Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer told reporters at a late Monday night news conference. The decontamination procedure was not explained, but witnesses saw some people emerging into the cold from a van outside the Dirksen building clad only in T-shirts and pants. One wore a white jumpsuit.
However, no one was expected to get sick, said Frist, who normally uses his Capitol majority leader's office instead of the Dirksen office. If symptoms of ricin poisoning have not surfaced in about eight hours, contamination is unlikely, said Frist, a surgeon before his election to the Senate.
A majority of tests conducted on the powder indicated ricin, Gainer said, even though some were negative.
White powder in Conn.
Meanwhile, in Wallingford, Conn., state environmental officials and federal agents were investigating the discovery of an unidentified white powder at a postal distribution center.
An employee found the powder in an envelope this morning, police and environmental officials said.
"That's enough to trigger our precautionary protocol," Wallingford Lt. Glen King said. "The worker found it and deemed the letter to be suspicious. Obviously the letter was isolated."
Nobody was taken to the hospital and the facility remained open this morning, police said.
The Wallingford facility is the same postal center at which investigators found anthrax spores in 2001. The substance found today has been taken to the state forensics laboratory for testing, DEP officials said.
Symptoms of poisoning
A clue to ricin poisoning is a suddenly developed fever, cough and excess fluid in the lungs, a fact sheet from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. These symptoms could be followed by severe breathing problems and possibly death, the CDC said. There is no known antidote.
Twice as deadly as cobra venom, ricin, which is derived from the castor bean plant, is relatively easily made and can be inhaled, ingested or injected.
Gainer said they were still investigating how the powder got into the mailroom.
The Homeland Security Department was monitoring the situation, spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. An FBI official said the agency was awaiting a final test from a laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., before deciding whether to get more fully involved in the case.
Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota was majority leader in 2001 when deadly anthrax was found in letters sent to his and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.'s offices in the Hart Senate Office Building. No one was ever arrested in those cases.
Hundreds of Capitol workers, reporters and tourists who were in the Hart building lined up for tests and doses of Cipro and other antibiotics after the anthrax attack. Areas of that building were closed for months for decontamination.
Capitol business
Frist said that the Senate would convene as scheduled at 9:45 a.m. today, but that Hart and the other two Senate officials buildings would be closed today. Spokesman Bob Stevenson said the closure was "to facilitate collection and removal of unopened mail."
Stevenson said Capitol tours were being suspended today, Senate restaurants closed and Senate pages were given the day off. But he said essential Capitol employees were expected to report to work as usual.
The House was scheduled to convene at 12:30 p.m.
Frist gave no indication that extra security had been ordered for the Capitol complex, though security in the area has been high since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Mail to congressional offices has been irradiated since the 2001 anthrax attack, but Frist said radiation is unlikely to have an effect on ricin.
In October, a package containing ricin was found at a postal facility serving Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina.