Appeals from union leaders and Toledo’s two congressmen notwithstanding, the U.S. Postal Service is proceeding with plans to shut down the balance of its local mail-sorting operation, part of which moved to Michigan 18 months ago.

Moving the sorting of mail to be delivered from Toledo and neighboring local post offices to Detroit will eliminate 117 of 243 jobs at the sorting center in Toledo’s main post office, David Van Allen, a postal service spokesman in Cleveland, said Thursday.

Arnie Cowell, president of the American Postal Workers’ Union Local 170 in Toledo, said about 140 employees received formal letters this week notifying them that their jobs are to be eliminated in 60 days.

Mr. Van Allen said the number of employees notified exceeds the number of job eliminations because union seniority could affect which employees actually lose their local jobs. The postal service’s intended date to end local sorting operations is April 18, he said, slightly longer than 60 days from now, and it could be slightly later than that.

“They’ve known about it for years. This started in 2012,” Mr. Van Allen said.

Plans to close the Toledo sorting center and 251 other such plants nationwide first became publicized in December, 2011, with postal officials saying the consolidation would save $3 billion annually, but at the cost of slower delivery. The postal service said at the time it would lengthen its standard for first-class mail from one-to-three days to two-to-three.

Mr. Cowell blamed the need for cuts on Congress, which has required the postal service to prefund 75 years of health-care benefits for its workforce, a level not required in the private sector.

“That’d bankrupt anybody,” the local union president said. “And they’re the only ones that can fix it, and they won’t do it.”

Sorting of outbound mail from Toledo was transferred to Pontiac, Mich., in July, 2013. The pending change will move the sorting of inbound mail to Detroit.

Delivery trucks will then run to Toledo’s main post office, Mr. Van Allen said, and from there the mail will be transferred into other trucks for local delivery as occurred before. Toledo’s main post office will still need truck drivers, mail handlers, retail clerks, and custodial staff, he said.

The Detroit regional center has ample ability to sort mail for northwest Ohio's local post offices, Mr. Van Allen said, because plunging first-class mail volume — 53 percent in the last 10 years — has left the USPS with excess capacity.

Along with Ohio’s two senators, U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) and Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green) co-signed a letter in July, 2013, asking the postal service to reconsider closing the Toledo sort facility. No comments were available Thursday from those congressmen’s offices.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.

First Published February 13, 2015, 5:00 a.m.