Photo by Maryland Route 5

Despite the fact that the U.S. Postal Service will likely lose another $5 billion in 2012, any plans to shut down post offices will be met with a fight — especially by members of Congress. Locally, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is claiming some wins.

Late last week, Norton declared partial victory when she reported that seven of the 19 D.C. post offices considered for closure were taken off of the chopping block.

According to a press release put out by her office, the Postal Service “has determined that the facilities at Brightwood, Ford Station, Lammond-Riggs Station, Longworth Station, Pentagon, Techworld, and Temple Heights are ‘not viable for closure.'”

As for six other post offices whose leases are up in 2012, Norton informed that one — Benning Station — had received a new lease while five others were still up in the air. She insisted that Postal Service push for new leases for the remaining five, which include T Street Station, Chillum Place Columbia Heights, Anacostia Finance Station, Southwest Station and Palisades Station.

In an email sent over the weekend, Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) announced that he was looking to relocate the T Street Station to somewhere nearby, possible the Reeves Center at 14th and U Streets NW. The existing post office will close on December 31 and is slated to become apartments at some point in 2012.

He also wrote that the Postal Service was holding a second hearing on December 15 to discuss the fate of the Kalorama Station on 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan and the T Street Station. A first meeting had been held on November 29, but residents complained that it took place in Ward 3, not in the ward where the closures being discussed were slated to happen.

“It is now important that our residents make their views abundantly clear that WE DO NOT WANT TO LOSE postal services in U Street or Adams Morgan areas. Anyone who has been to these locations knows just how crowded and jammed up they are virtually every day of the week. Both post offices are revenue producers. Both fill critical needs,” he wrote.

The meeting will take place this Thursday at the Mary and Daniel Loughran Center located at 2500 14th Street, NW from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

In her statement, Norton stressed that any closures are likely to take a long time, and that she preferred to see post offices located in federal buildings closed before any neighborhood locations are considered. Prior closures were floated in 2009, but none came to pass.