Tainted water-E. coli outbreak link probed

Calling it a ‘viable explanation,’ FDA says irrigation water could have contaminated lettuce

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Monday the ongoing investigation into this year’s E. coli outbreak considers contaminated irrigation water a “viable explanation” of its cause.

The agency posted an update to its website that said tainted water, either through direct irrigation or indirect use, could have been the culprit in spreading the harmful bacteria to the romaine lettuce, which was shipped across the country and caused illnesses in 36 states, federal authorities say.

The entry took note of a meeting agency officials held in Yuma last week with members of the Leafy Greens Food Safety Task Force, a coalition of shippers, growers, buyers and others in the produce industry in response to the outbreak.

The FDA said this and other hypothesis were discussed with the committee, including the presence of a large feedlot near the spot where the contaminated samples of canal water were drawn last month.

The operation “can hold in excess of 100,000 head of cattle at any one time and the FDA traceback information showed a clustering of romaine lettuce farms nearby,” the website said.

The FDA said more water samples from the Yuma area will be collected for testing in the near future, while investigators continue looking for possible links between the feedlot, surrounding water sources, and other factors that may have contributed to spreading the contamination.

The agency’s final conclusions will be included in an environmental assessment of the areas where the tainted lettuce is believed to have originated.

The E. coli outbreak was first reported by the U.S. Centers for disease control in April. The agency identified chopped romaine lettuce grown in the area as the source of the bacterial outbreak.

The outbreak led to more than 200 romaine consum-

ers getting sick, including five who died. Its size mirrors the 2006 cluster of cases ultimately tied to a spinach field in Salinas, Calif.

Those led to a renewed emphasis on food safety in Yuma and throughout the industry which has ratcheted higher in the 12 years since.

The FDA information presented in Yuma last week showed some progress has been made in the investigation, said Steve Alameda, president of the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association.

But he said many growers disagreed with some of the conclusions they were drawing, and there’s still no real explanation of how the bacteria was introduced into the environment, or how it could have gone undetected through all of the product testing that’s routinely done.

“Where we differ, our contention with FDA is, this is a learning event,” Alameda said. “Something happened here. It’s not adding up, and they seem to want to make it something where they can say, point at the water, the water’s contaminated, do this and go down the road.

“We’re saying, we did not have any numbers. We’re testing the water, we’re testing the field, the salad plants are testing. Nobody had any hits, it didn’t turn up anywhere,” he said. Nor is there any evidence anyone was negligent about testing, he added.

Samples taken during the period before the first E. coli illnesses reportedly began in mid-March were unusually clean, if anything, Alameda said.

The FDA’s positive-testing samples were taken in early June, long after Yuma County’s romaine crops had been harvested.

Romaine has become the most popular of the varieties of lettuce, overtaking iceberg in recent years as consumer perceptions have switched to the higher nutrition value it provides.

Bobbi McDermott, a retired USDA soil scientist who writes the Yuma Sun’s “Yuma Ag and You” column, attended part of the task force meeting and said while it shows some progress is being made in the investigation, there are still too many question marks for Yumans getting ready for next season, with the

first plantings next month.

“If you go out and drive around this fall, you won’t see romaine anywhere within miles of anyone who has horses in their backyard, or somewhere where they run sheep in the winter, any of those sorts of things. So it will affect the economy here somewhat, as far as what can be leased or can’t be leased for the highest-dollar crop,” she said.