Down the Toilet Not a Good Idea When Handling a White Powder on Capitol Hill

Lawmakers this week expressed outrage that a supervisor with the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) in Washington D.C. flushed a white powder from a plastic bag labeled “Anthrax” down a toilet at the Capitol while hundreds of tourists milled around nearby. After being notified by a visitor assistant that the powder-filled bag was in the CVC’s Exhibition Hall, an operational supervisor allegedly retrieved a pair of plastic gloves and brought it to a nearby bathroom and flushed its contents down a toilet. About an hour later, Capitol Police were notified. The hazardous devices unit found no traces of harmful biological components, such as anthrax spores, during an inspection June 5 that covered the restroom, the route the supervisor allegedly took there and the area where the bag was found. The Hill is not naming the operational supervisor who flushed the substance because the identity of the employee has not been confirmed by an on-the-record source.