I just read that Butler County businesses are required to get a permit for the spotted lanternfly. The county now has areas in quarantine. The plan is to prevent the pests from hitching a ride on delivery vehicles. The Department of Agriculture actually thinks this will help.

The reality is the whole idea is absurd and won’t work. For every business vehicle traveling in and out of the quarantined area, there are a hundred private vehicles doing the same.

The quarantined areas are filled with residential homes. Each home has a driveway and at least one car — the same cars that every morning leave and drive all over the state going about their business.

To think that the lanternfly will only hitch a ride on business-related vehicles is ridiculous. The whole program is a waste of time.

The only way to control them (and even this is probably futile) is to kill them on sight. But then if that worked, it would put them on the endangered species list. And we all know what that means.

Gary McKruit, Cabot