As Yuma farmers begin planting, E. coli fears linger
New guidelines in place after last season’s outbreak
Lettuce seeds and transplanted seedlings are going into fields across Yuma County, as local growers plant their first vegetable crops since an E. coli outbreak proved to be a tragic end to last winter’s season.
Their focus is trying to eliminate the possibility of another such disaster, even while the hints about what went so wrong six months ago are murky at best.
Testing of irrigation and other water sources has gone up and buffer zones around feedlots have increased, even before new guidelines for Arizona growers were adopted by an industry group Friday, Sept. 14.
The Food Safety Committee of the Arizona Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement approved the new measures, which all members will be required to follow, including most if not all growers and shippers in Yuma.
Teressa Lopez, program administrator for the Arizona LGMA at the Arizona Department of Agriculture, said training on the new standards will be provided to growers over the next two months, and they will be audited on them for the first time in November.
Steve Alameda, president of the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association, said earlier in the week that many things are already being done differently, especially on fields
near animal feedlots. Cattle feedyards, in particular, have been identified as sources of harmful E. coli in the past.
The new LGMA guidelines increase the required distance between produce fields and any “confined animal feeding operation” from 400 feet to 1,200 feet.
“Some are insisting on water treatment. That means chlorination of the water. If you’re close to that feedlot, to ensure there isn’t any, if there happened to be something there, it would kill that. So that is happening. The water in the spray rigs is being treated. So there’s lots of different things going on here,” Alameda said.
Changes to the LGMA “metrics,” or guidelines, are based upon recommendations released Aug. 1 at a meeting of the Leafy Greens Food Safety Task Force. Others announced at that time included additional scrutiny of weather conditions and how they might impact crops’ safety, and improved traceback standards for products.
The new measures are based mostly on evidence from a federal investigation which many expect will never identify exactly why five people died and another 205 got sick, in 36 states, after eating Yumagrown romaine lettuce last spring.
One factor that seems to have been ruled out is negligence on the part of Yuma’s $2 billion per year agricultural industry. That isn’t unusual, according to John Boelts, a Yuma farmer and vice president of the Arizona Farm Bureau.
“Almost none of the CDC/FDA investigations into foodborne illnesses are 100 percent resolved, and the ones that are, typically, there is some negligence factor. But the reason most of them aren’t resolved, like ‘this is exactly what happened,’ is because it wasn’t negligence,” he said.
He added, “We don’t live in a perfect world, but we are certainly committed to working our hardest to do everything humanly possible to make sure these things don’t happen.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released some of the investigators’ findings in advance of a final report which may be released within a month.
Three water samples from an irrigation canal testing positive for bacteria related to those which caused the outbreak. It has also highlighted the presence of a large cattle feedlot near what it described as a concentration of romaine lettuce fields.
The FDA has not publicly named the feedlot, but the only one in the county large enough to match the agency’s description of it is Five Rivers Cattle Feeding’s McElhaney Feedlot, north of Interstate 8 about halfway between Wellton and Tacna.
Tom McDonald, vice president of environmental affairs for Five Rivers, said the feedlot has been fully cooperating with investigators from the FDA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and none of the test results have come up positive for the strain of harmful E. coli bacteria implicated in the outbreak.
“Extensive environmental testing performed by both federal agencies has not produced any results that we are aware of which specifically link our facility to the recent outbreak,” he said.
“In fact, we have been informed by the agencies that the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 was not found in any of the samples taken from the feedlot. We also are not aware of any test results that establish a pathway of contamination from our facility to the irrigation water canals,” he said.
State Rep. David Cook, a Republican from Globe, sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb last week asking the agency to not issue its final report which he had heard could lay the blame on Five Rivers.
“The unsubstantiated claims against the feedlot have far reaching effects against the industry and are dangerous insinuations not based on facts,” Cook said.
Cook, a rancher, told the Yuma Sun the negative test results offer proof the McElhaney lot was not a factor in the outbreak, but is worried theories suggesting it could have caused it will be in the report, with or without mentioning how the tests came out.
“What I’m hearing is that it doesn’t contain the facts. That we are talking about hypotheses, different things that might, could’ve, would’ve happened, and that’s not the way government should operate. It should contain the facts. This happened, that happened, we’ve done these tests, here are the results of those tests,” he said.
Peter Cassell, spokesman for the FDA, said Friday the agency has received Cook’s letter and would be responding directly to the legislator.
He also said he couldn’t provide any new information about the investigation or its findings, but believes the environmental assessment report will be released soon.
Foodborne illness attorney Bill Marler, who represents about 80 patients of the E. coli epidemic, said the tie between E. coli contamination and cattle feedlots is strong, and he’s a little skeptical that new practices from Yuma County growers will be enough to prevent another outbreak.
“I’d never want to suggest the things they’re doing aren’t going to be of some help because I think they probably will, but will it be enough to prevent another outbreak? I think unfortunately, time’s going to tell,” he said.
As the first Yuma produce of the fall gets ready to hit the nationwide market, efforts have begun to reassure American consumers that the winter leafy greens and other vegetables which come from Yuma, which make up most their diet, are safe to eat.
Robert Smook, public information officer for the Arizona Department of Agriculture, said among the flurry of other meetings being held as this season starts, Yuma growers will be offered media training sessions this week on how to talk to reporters about the outbreak and what’s being done to avoid a repeat.
“This is vital. Here we are, right upon a growing season, and we’ve seen what’s happened with outbreaks and the effects they’ve had on the particular ag commodity. At the same time, you can’t have this happen again. And that’s what need to be shown. The media needs to see what’s being done,” he said.
Alameda said acreage being planted this fall is down a bit, since demand for fresh vegetables was soft all summer, while they were being grown in California. The outbreak came at the end of a couple of winters where an oversupply of lettuce had been driving down prices anyway.
But he said the YFVA members are not dragging their feet, and are fully engaged with the new season: “We’re in it, here. There’s no hesitating, or you don’t have a crop.”