Feds seek comments on plan to fight potato pest in Idaho

Federal officials are taking public comments on possible methods to deal with a microscopic pest that has infested potato fields in southeastern Idaho. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will accept comments through May 28 on the supplemental environmental assessment that looks at ways to combat the pale cyst nematode. The new document covers all of Bingham and Bonneville counties and replaces a 2007 document covering about 10,000 regulated acres, said Jonathan Jones, national policy manager with the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. “It was time for something more robust, which is what this is,” he said. More