U.S. Sen. Susan Collins opposes the United States Postal Service’s proposal to consolidate Maine’s two mail processing facilities, she said Thursday.
Collins, in a letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, wrote that consolidating the Hampden and Scarborough facilities would have a detrimental effect on services and postal customers in Maine.
The Hampden facility allows the postal service to maintain reliable operations, and without it Maine residents will see delays in the delivery of their local mail, Collins said. In 2012, a similar idea to close the Hampden facility was proposed, but it was ultimately rejected.
“This proposal jeopardizes the reliable delivery of medication for Mainers who rely on mail order pharmacies and deliveries from federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs for their prescriptions, a critical concern for the oldest state in the nation,” Collins wrote.
In the letter, Collins provided an example of the “clear geographic necessity” for having two mail processing facilities in Maine.
Mail sent from Fort Kent to Wallagrass 10 miles away travels to the Hampden facility, which is 192 miles away, for processing, she said. It returns the following day by truck to Wallagrass, which is 182 miles away.
“These are already long distances, but without the Eastern Maine P&DC, this mail would instead be transported to Scarborough, 322 miles away from Fort Kent, and then get trucked another 312 miles back to Wallagrass,” she wrote.
