Ami Boxes to Get Second Anthrax Cleaning

To ensure that every trace of deadly anthrax is eliminated, the owner of the former AMI building intends to fumigate all the building’s contents a second time.

David Rustine, the building owner, has hired Downingtown, Pa.- based MARCOR Remediation Inc. to reclean thousands of boxes that have been fumigated since the anthrax cleanup began on April 15, public records show.

BioONE, which boasts former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as a partner, failed to extend its contract with Rustine to finish the cleanup. The company disinfected the building’s interior, which will not be cleaned a second time.

Rustine and the two companies did not say why the cleanup job has changed hands.

The Environmental Protection Agency already has approved MARCOR Remediation’s plans to disinfect the boxes’ exteriors with a bleach solution, said EPA project director Terry Stillman. The company still needs the approval of the Palm Beach County Health Department and a national task force before it can begin its work.

Though BioONE stored cleaned boxes away from contaminated ones in the building’s basement, county officials said they would not differentiate among the boxes.

“Everything is suspect,” said Jean Malecki, county health department director. “We want to err on the side of ultimate caution.”

Yet, the data BioONE submitted to the health department showed that its fumigation work had effectively killed anthrax, Malecki said.

Though BioONE has never disclosed how much it charged Rustine for its work, Senior Vice President Jeff MacIntyre has said that a decontamination of this size can cost about $5 million. Rustine bought the former AMI building in 2003 for $40,000.

Rustine’s contract with BioONE, the joint venture between Giuliani Partners and Sabre Technical Services, expired on May 31. Despite the optimism of BioONE officials, negotiations to extend the contract ultimately failed.

Rustine apparently hired MARCOR Remediation within a week of the contract’s expiration. A draft of the company’s health and safety plan for the second cleanup is dated June 6.

MARCOR Remediation is to decontaminate 8,500 wax-covered boxes and another 180 oversized boxes during a seven-week work schedule.

Joan Blazucki, a spokeswoman for MARCOR Remediation, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Rustine did not return phone calls. He consistently refuses to comment on the cleanup or his plans for the building’s contents.

Initially, Rustine intended to incinerate the contaminated boxes. He shelved that idea after freelance photographers claimed they owned the photos in the 4.5 million-photo archive that American Media Inc. left behind when the building was quarantined in October 2001. Malecki shut down the building days after Sun photo editor Bob Stevens died from anthrax inhalation.

The building was the first to be contaminated in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

BioONE will work as a subcontractor to the Environmental Protection Agency, which is monitoring the cleanup, said Stillman.

EPA officials brought in BioONE to help them avert a potential health crisis on Memorial Day weekend, when Tropical Storm Arlene was making its way to the Panhandle, Malecki said. One of BioONE’s water pumps broke that weekend and flooded the basement. The company raised thousands of boxes onto cinder blocks and cleaned up the basement, said Dawn Harris-Young, an EPA spokesperson. Subsequent testing of the outside parking area by EPA officials revealed no anthrax spores, she said.

BioONE officials would not comment on the nature of their continuing work and referred all questions to the EPA. Malecki said the company would continue to provide “emergency assistance.”

Several months ago, BioONE announced its plans to move into the building and establish its headquarters there once Malecki lifts a quarantine on the building.

“BioONE is committed to being part of the Boca Raton business community,” the company asserted in a written statement Wednesday.

– tania_valdemoro@pbpost.com