On October 15, 2001, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle opened an anthrax-filled envelope in Daschle's suite at the Hart Senate Office Building, releasing billions of anthrax spores. Within a day of receiving the notice to proceed from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), CDM mobilized a team that numbered as many as 40 OSHA-trained professionals to aid in the cleanup.
The challenges were daunting: deadly spores, toxic gases, and 95-degree temperatures in the unventilated office building. The goals were immediate: reopen the building and return Capitol Hill to normal. CDM worked closely with the EPA to develop procedures that would achieve these goals rapidly, while protecting the team and the public from health and safety threats. CDM helped the EPA respond to the anthrax threat by:
Participating in the development of a first-of-its-kind approach to prepare, place, collect, track, and test bacteriologically infused media (spore strips) as surrogates for anthrax to validate the effectiveness of decontamination techniques.
Handling and maintaining data integrity for nearly 30,000 spore strips and more than 3,500 bags of critical items from inside the building, allowing it to be reopened after a 96-day quarantine.
Verifying safe remediation of contaminated areas and ensuring protection of site workers under extremely hazardous conditions, which helped restore the public's confidence in the government's ability to address biological terrorism.