All St. Louis area post offices have now escaped a nationwide budget-cutting ax.

Nine offices that were still at risk for closure will remain open after all, U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Valerie Hughes said Wednesday.

After reviewing the data, "they just decided they didn't want to close them," Hughes said.

Previously, 29 other offices in the St. Louis area that were on a list for potential consolidation were spared.

The Postal Service has been looking at closing branches across the country because of a looming deficit of as much as $7 billion this year caused by a sharp decline in mail volume. The drop is blamed on the recession and the movement of mail to the Internet.

Two local union leaders representing 2,200 postal employees met last week about the proposed cuts with St. Louis Postmaster Robert A. Cavinder. Fred Wolfmeyer, vice president of the St. Louis Gateway District of the American Postal Workers Union, credited the union's lobbying efforts for the change of heart. Cavinder could not be reached for comment.

Postal workers here and across the country have met with neighborhood groups and members of Congress, and worked off-duty in front of post offices asking customers to fill out postcards urging the offices to stay open. Wolfmeyer said about 3,000 postcards were passed out in the St. Louis area.

He said saving the post offices was about more than preserving jobs. "Our position is that this is a service to the public and we have to keep them open to provide that service," he said.

The local union's president, Anthony Harris, said many post offices on the chopping block served the poor and members of minority groups who generally have less access to transportation.

"It's one of the stabilizing entities in a

community," Harris said. Postal Service officials seem to be realizing that, he said.

Five of the nine getting the latest reprieve are in St. Louis. They are the Baden branch at 8390 North Broadway; Jordan W. Chambers, 901 North Garrison Avenue; Soulard, 1914 South Broadway; Tower Grove, 3198 South Grand Boulevard; and a small office downtown at 111 North Sixth Street.

The others are at 8655 Airport Road in Berkeley and in three major shopping centers — Crestwood Plaza, St. Louis Galleria and South County Mall.

What once was a list of 3,100 potential closings nationwide is now down to 300 or so, Harris said. He said he expected that number to go even lower.

Hughes has said the agency was considering criteria such as revenue, mail volume and proximity to other branches in deciding which locations to close.