Another postal facility in Washington DC has been closed for anthrax testing: Feds Close Another Postal Facility. (Hat tip: madawaskan.)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service confirms that it has shut down the V Street postal facility in northeast Washington. A spokesman said testing is under way to see if there is any contamination in that building.

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams said in a news conference outside D.C. General Hospital that all mail headed to the Pentagon comes through the V Street facility at 3070 V St., N.E. Williams said about 250 people are employed there.

Dr. Gregg Pane, chief medical officer for the District employees will be given the antibiotic Cipro as a precaution against possible biohazards. Pane said the antibiotic would be distributed from D.C. General and health officials will continue giving it out until all it has been received by all employees. But health officials said it is up to the individual employee to decide whether they would start taking it.

Three federal mailroom facilities in Fairfax County, Va., have been closed indefinitely until officials in Virginia learn what caused sensors that detect hazardous materials to sound off Monday.

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue spokesman Dan Schmidt said a lab is testing the substance right now and officials hope to have results sometime on Tuesday.

UPDATE at 3/15/05 8:35:04 am:

The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon mail facility has tested positive for anthrax.

Samples taken at a Pentagon mail facility have tested positive for anthrax, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services reported today, but officials do not yet know if the anthrax bacteria were live and thus capable of transmitting disease.

The spokesman, Bill Hall, said that further tests are being conducted at Fort Detrick to determine if the anthrax was live or if it was just a component of anthrax. Such testing normally takes 24 to 48 hours, but initial tests may be available by this afternoon. The anthrax confirmation was done through intricate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing run overnight and confirmed the alert initially reported by a defense contractor laboratory in Richmond last week.