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[GWL]: Plant Irradiation

Am I the only one a bit confused by postal logic these days? I am being 
told that USPS plans to irradiate "flats" and packages at some sites 
(according to the USNews article USPS spent $40 billion for 8 machines) 
that are considered particularly of interest to terrorists, but not at 
all postal hubs, that packages marked as plants or bank cards or other 
vulnerable materials or from "known" senders will not be treated and/or 
that plant businesses need to finish transferring all of our shipping to 
UPS or FedEx.  Uh, is the assumption that anyone deliberately and 
maliciously tampering with the mails is too ignorant to follow the exact 
same procedures to get their own packages around the safeguards? 

This all just seems like a typical bureaucratic knee-jerk reaction with 
governmental officials acting out of fear and the need to quickly pacify 
folks, rather than thinking through best-case solutions.

On that same tune, different note - is anyone else noticing real delays 
in shipping times?  We're having no problems with shipping along the 
eastern half of the nation, but we've got packages out via UPS that are 
taking more than a week now to cross the nation to the west coast.  With 
live plants, this is also not acceptable and we're not getting any clear 
answers.

I've been asked to put together an article on "all of this" for our 
regional nursery industry newsletter and I'm becoming increasingly at a 
loss as to what to tell them to expect.  Most sources only add to the 
confusion.

I do hope that all garden writers will encourage mail order gardeners to 
order early this spring and to be prepared for more convoluted shipping, 
just in case.

Sybil

Sybil Mays
Paradise Nursery Gourmet Fruit Plants
<http://www.paradisenursery.com>
Virginia Beach VA 23457

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