`NUCLEAR WORM' BECOMES A CONTROVERSIAL NEW BAIT.(MAIN)

Byline: KEN RINGLE Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Just when you thought it was safe to go back into that snakehead fishpond behind the shopping center in Crofton, Md., now comes word of a new threat slithering into our environment.

It's big (five to seven feet long), it's bad (it can carry cholera), it's hot pink (nearly fluorescent), and it's coming soon to a bait shop near you. It's the Nuclear Worm (genus Namalycastis), Vietnam's biological revenge for all that napalm 30 years ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is on the case.

Shipped in via San Francisco, where it's probably just another lifestyle, the nuclear worm has been welcomed into …