Troubled postal service has Deferiet worried

DEFERIET — Edward J. Mullen has visited the post office here almost every day for the past 60 years. When he worked at St. Regis Paper Co., he'd walk across the street to get his mail before going home for dinner.

Years after retiring from the mill, visiting the post office is still part of Mr. Mullen's daily routine.

"I'd like to keep it that way," he said during his visit last week, when he lingered at the office chatting with Sara J. Titus, the postal worker, after pulling a piece of mail out of his post office box. "I like to come here."

But with the United States Postal Service's recent financial trouble — it recorded a loss of $2.8 billion last year — and the expectation that its total mail volume will drop by 20 billion or more pieces by the end of this year, many village residents wonder how much longer they will have a post office.

Maureen P. Marion, Postal Service spokeswoman, said closing smaller post offices isn't a consideration for tightening the budget gap, right now.

"Wholesale closings of post offices are not in our game plan," she said in an e-mail. "But we do recognize that recent headlines and trends in how America uses its mail can be troubling to residents served by smaller post offices."

Several small post offices in the north country closed in the 1990s, including the South Rutland Post Office in Jefferson County and Lawrenceville and Oswegatchie offices in St. Lawrence County, according to Times archives. The Plessis Post Office closed in 2007.

"It is not an option we exercise often, but sometimes it is the appropriate, difficult decision that we make," Ms. Marion said.

The post office is one of two businesses still left in the village after Newstech NY shut the paper mill down in 2004 and sold it to a developer in 2005. Village Historian Janet M. Zando said losing it would be a major hit to the already dwindling tear-drop-shaped village.

"We've lost everything else in town — we don't have a store, we don't have any of that anymore," she said. "I think it's very important to keep some kind of identity."

The Deferiet Post Office was established in 1901 and is still located in a building on Anderson Avenue that is part of the paper mill property.

The building, which housed many businesses and meeting places over the years, is now dilapidated. Pieces of white siding have fallen off, revealing the black house wrap underneath. The union hall, St. Regis regional offices, community hall, meat market, diner, credit union and store have come and gone, but the post office has always survived.

"The whole building has been used for different things at different times, but the post office has always remained there," Ms. Zando said.