NASHUA – The U.S. Postal Service processing facility on Celina Avenue will stay open for the near future despite reports of its imminent closure.

Word that the Nashua facility and a second distribution center in Manchester were closing moved across the state Monday faster than a piece of priority mail.

On Tuesday, USPS officials said those reports were overblown. The facility will stay open – at least for now. This doesn’t mean the center, on the west side of the city and indirectly off Amherst Street, will stay open in the distant future.

The distribution center, which employs 323 people, remains on a list of facilities that are being studied for closure, USPS spokesman Tom Rizzo said Tuesday morning. This list – and Nashua’s inclusion on it – was first reported in September.

No decision has been made about the Nashua facility, or the one in Manchester, Rizzo said.

The confusion seems to have been driven by news reports early Monday about USPS asking the Postal Regulatory Commission for approval to downgrade first-class delivery standards to save money.

The downgrade would all but eliminate the opportunity for stamped letters to arrive the next day.

By eliminating overnight first-class delivery, USPS says it can also close some sorting and processing centers to cut costs. Postal officials suggested some news organizations took a leap and started reporting with certainty about the closing of processing facilities, citing the centers that were mentioned in September.

Several news stories posted online Monday evening and published Tuesday morning included the distribution centers in Nashua and Manchester.

“Some erroneous news reports have confused the list of facilities to be studied with the list of facilities that have (already) been recommended to be closed,” Rizzo said.

In September, USPS said this facility could be partially or fully consolidated next year with another mail distribution center in New Hampshire or any neighboring state.

If a recommendation is made to partially close or completely shut down the facility, Rizzo said USPS headquarters would have to make the final decision. If a facility is approved to be closed, it would shutter in the spring, at the earliest, Rizzo said.

For now, no decision has been made.

The Celina Avenue center handles priority and express mail and a small amount of first-class mail. Meanwhile, another Nashua USPS distribution facility less than three miles away off Exit 8 and the Somerset Parkway is not on the closure list.

The Manchester facility has started to absorb mail distribution from a closed Portsmouth center and is scheduled to take on mail from a center that is recommended to be closed in White River Junction, Vt., Rizzo said.

The Nashua facility has not absorbed any work from other centers because it is a priority mail operation, Rizzo said. It employs 302 full-time workers, 16 managers and five temporary workers, he said.

USPS started the study with the hope of saving $3 billion annually. It could close as many as 250 of its nearly 500 distribution and sorting facilities, affecting as many as 100,000 jobs.

Postal Service mail volume has declined by more than 43 billion pieces in the past five years and is continuing to drop, according to Rizzo.

On top of that, a congressional mandate that requires USPS to fund in advance the health benefits of future retirees has hurt finances, Rizzo said.

For the next 75 years, the Postal Service has to prefund the retirement health benefits. That obligation has cost USPS $5.5 billion annually.

Albert McKeon can be reached at 594-6528 or amckeon@nashuatelegraph.com. Also check out McKeon (@Telegraph_AMcK) on Twitter.