Termite warning an anti-corporation scare tactic

Today, I saw a warning about termites in mulch made from trees that were knocked down during hurricane Katrina posted on a homeschool message board. It read:

If you use mulch around your house be very careful about buying mulch this year. After the hurricane in New Orleans many trees were blown over. These trees were then turned into mulch and the state is trying to get rid of tons and tons of this mulch to any state or company who will come and haul it away. So it will be showing up in Home Depot and Lowes at dirt cheap prices with one huge problem; Formosan Termites will be the bonus in many of those bags. New Orleans is one of the few areas in the country were the Formosan Termites has gotten a strong hold and most of the trees blown down were already badly infested with those termites. Now we may have the worst case of transporting a problem to all parts of the country that we have ever had. These termites can eat a house in no time at all and we have no good control against them, so tell your friends that own homes to avoid cheap mulch and know were it came from.

The post was accompanied by this link with information from Louisiana State University Agricultural Center.

Later someone exposed the truth. The truth, according to the site snopes.com, is that there are steps being taken to prevent spread of the termites. There is even information on the LSU AgCenter website about the quarantine, on another page of the same site that was referenced in the warning.

Furthermore, Home Depot does not even use mulch from suppliers in that area. Here is their statement on the matter:

The Home Depot does not use any mulch suppliers from the New Orleans area. We have very strict policies and procedures in place to ensure the integrity of the mulch products sold in our stores. In fact, all our mulch suppliers are required to be certified by the Mulch and Soil Council (MSC), who created the industry standards and criteria for mulch and soil certification and inspection. You can find the MSC certification on the back of every bag.

I am sure the message board poster was just trying to be helpful by passing along the info. What she posted was word for word what is on the snopes site, so she is obviously not the originator. What I want to know is: what was the motive of the person or group who started this rumor?

I think the motive is clear by the fact that they specifically mention the two big box home improvement retailers Home Depot and Lowes. The motive was to try to undermine the sales at these retailers.

How low are the anti-corporation extremists willing to stoop to try to sabotage big retailers? So, if they can’t get people to agree with them that corporations are evil and stop people from shopping there, they will just start a smear campaign based on lies that play on people’s fears?

I think I might go out to Home Depot and buy some mulch just to show my
support. Although, I’m not sure what I will do with it.