Letter: Potato column gives writer, newspaper a black eye

EDITOR,
By now you should have gotten some backlash from Colly Gruczelak’s column (“She says potato, he says no thanks,” June 15, Page 10) on sneaking live plant material past USDA agricultural inspection. Shame on her for breaking the law, and shame on you for running the piece. Import controls on produce exist for a reason, and Solanum is a disease-ridden genus. How would Colly feel if she were responsible for introducing a new mosaic virus to the US?
Seed potatoes are treated for disease and fungal control. A bag of eating potatoes bought at an Irish roadside stand might contain all kinds of pathogens, in the tubers or in the soil clinging to them. If you want to trivialize this, just think about the devastating effects sudden oak death had on our local forests. It is thought to have been introduced in imported plant material.
One little potato — “the smallest of (her) precious cargo” — might not seem worth fussing over, but why does Colly think she is above the law? The most ridiculous part of this is that Kerr’s Pinks are available as seed potatoes in the United States. Legally. Just Google it.
P.F. Maher, Bonny Doon