Idaho growers learned today that Congress failed to approve the requested compensation for those affected by the off-site movement of the herbicide Oust from Bureau of Land Management spraying last year.
The only compensation will be $5 million for growers who had losses in excess of 75 percent of their crops.
A meeting has been set for tomorrow, Oct. 30, at 10 a.m. in the Rupert, ID, Armory to discuss the situation.
One last course of action will probably be to file a lawsuit for compensation for many other growers. Some fields were nearly completely wiped out while others were damaged in varying degrees.
BLM sprayed desert land following wild fires in an effort to control weed infestations. What the Bureau did not take into account, was that the herbicide would tie up in the soot and ash and be blown by spring winds onto adjoining crop land.