Hart Senate Office Building declared free from anthrax

WASHINGTON -- Officials pronounced the Hart Senate Office Building free of anthrax on Wednesday, and maintenance crews began preparing it for a Friday reopening, three months after a letter laden with the deadly bacteria was opened there.

In a pair of memos e-mailed to senators, health and environmental officials said repeated efforts to cleanse the building had "achieved the goal of eliminating viable anthrax spores."

"It is clean and safe ... for rehabilitation and reoccupancy," said the memo, citing the findings of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies.

Even so, there were mixed reactions among workers about returning to the building where a letter believed to contain billions of anthrax spores was opened Oct. 15 in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.