BRINKHAVEN — Brinkhaven residents may be without a post office after a December decision by the U.S. Postal Service.
The small town in eastern Knox County is on a list of 3,600 post offices, branches and stations being examined for possible closure. The USPS is looking to shut down over 10 percent of its retail stores. Brinkhaven is the only Knox County facility on the list.
“We’re not saying that these offices are going to be closed as of now,” said David Walton, USPS spokesman. “They’re up for study for consideration.
“We look at a variety of things,” said Walton. “We look at the workload, customer demand, footwork and the availability of nearby alternatives. We try to determine if there is another way to meet their needs.”
Walton stated that if all the offices on the list for study were closed it would save more than $200 million per year.
Declining revenue within the U.S. Postal Service has caused the government agency to consider closing more than 10 percent of its retail offices, according to information recently released by the USPS and the Associated Press. Recent figures from the USPS are showing that more than 35 percent of the USPS’s retail revenue is coming from expanded access locations such as grocery stores, drug stores, office supply stores, self-serve kiosks, ATM machines and the usps.com website.
“Our customers’ habits have made it clear they no longer require a physical post office to conduct most of their postal business,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe in a recent release.
With a large amount of first-class mail being moved to the Internet and a recession resulting in a decline in advertising mail, the USPS has reported a loss of $8 billion in 2010.
