Feds: E. coli found in canal water here

Bacteria match organisms that caused outbreak in romaine lettuce, FDA spokesman says

The federal government announced Thursday the E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce grown in the Yuma growing region is over, and water samples taken this month from the area’s irrigation canals have tested positive for bacteria related to the pathogen that sickened 210 people nationwide, resulting in five deaths.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s statement that the outbreak first reported in April “appears to be over” gave some relief to the Yuma agriculture industry, but the sampling by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration brought new questions, most urgently for farmers currently irrigating crops.

Steve Alameda, president of the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association, said his group is working with the Yuma Safe Produce Council to release an advisory for growers on precautions they should be taking.

“Now the real work starts of coming up with mitigation measures, so hopefully it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

The CDC said the last reported case of E. coli in the outbreak began on June 6, nearly two months after Yuma romaine lettuce was first identified as the likely source of the contamination.

Out of the 210 reported cases, the largest number by far were in California, with 49 cases. Arizona reported nine ill patients from the outbreak.

Ninety-six patients nationwide were hospitalized, and 27 developed the most serious symptom of E. coli infection, a form of kidney failure that can be permanent. Two of the five deaths were reported from Minnesota, and one each from California, New York, and Arkansas.

It was the largest such outbreak since the 2006 one linked to spinach from Salinas, Calif., which made 225 people ill and killed five, according to a 2016 report.

Vicki Scott of the Yuma Produce Safety Council said the group will be posting recommendations for growers on its website at yumasafeproduce.org, after meeting with irrigation district board members today.

“They are not binding, just suggested practices from food safety professionals working in the greater Yuma growing area. The recommendations are based on the risk that has been identified and reflect industry recognized solutions to pathogenic bacte-

rial presence in irrigation water,” she said.

Peter Cassell, FDA spokesman, said the canal water samples were collected during the week of June 4, and scientists were able to identify E. coli bacteria found as a match to the organisms which caused the outbreak down to geonome sequencing, “so we know they’re related.”

Other samples have been taken from water, soil, and cow manure in the area, and some have produced different strains of E. coli from the O157:H7 shiga-producing one, which releases a toxin into the body of infected people and animals. Most other forms of E. coli bacteria are not harmful.

Additional samples are still coming in, he said. “We’re still processing sampling results and as we get more, we’ll be better able to focus our hypotheses” about why the harmful strain got into the water, and if that’s how contamination was spread to crops throughout the area.

Cassell said the FDA does not have a “definitive answer” on what should be done by those currently irrigating crops from Yumaarea canals. Many summer crops, such as alfalfa and cotton, aren’t edible by humans and wouldn’t carry the same health concerns.

But melons are being grown in several parts of the region, including the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District.

General Manager Elston Grubaugh of the east county district said he didn’t believe E. coli bacteria poses the same risk to the thick-skinned fruit as with the leafy green vegetables grown in the winter.

“Melons are only grown on raised beds, and I’m not sure what they get from the water, but melons have a natural covering on them. As with any fresh produce people should wash them before they cut into them, but I don’t think there’s much of a risk, given the current conditions,” he said.

He said samples have been taken from his district, as they have been throughout the region, and the results of the canal water tests are significant, although they were taken some two months after the end of the winter vegetable growing season.

“I find it puzzling that something that caused the problem in March, they could find the same genetic fingerprint in June, because that particular E. coli tends to mutate quite rapidly.” he said.

“To me it says there’s some reason why it’s persisting, why it’s hiding in the water, or it’s being reintroduced, from the same source,” he added.

Tom Davis, general manager for the Yuma County Water Users’ Association in western Yuma County, said he’s not sure how much help the canal samples will be for pinpointing the root cause of the outbreak.

He asked, “Why did it only contaminate romaine? We were watering everything then, all kinds of produce, all kinds of other crops, both in Mexico, and California. Everything that comes out of Imperial Dam, was being watered by Colorado River water, at that same time. Most of it was at the end of produce season. Why wasn’t it all contaminated?”

When told the samples were taken in June, he said, “That has nothing to do with romaine lettuce.”

Alameda said he was told the concentrations of harmful E. coli in the water samples taken were not especially high, though he didn’t have exact levels.

“We still don’t think the contamination, as far as it went, we don’t think it necessarily got there through the water,” he said. “It could have been windblown, it could have been other things. I don’t know, It went in the water, and it’s being distributed to fields that way, but as far as where it went — it doesn’t make sense, to tell you the truth.”

Paula Rivadeneiras, assistant professor and food safety specialist at the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, said that if the irrigation system is found to be the source of the contamination that caused the outbreak, a bunch of other issues would arise.

Those include how the water was contaminated, what should leafy greens growers do as they begin planting next winter’s crops in August and September, and why the mul- tiple samples taken of water, soil and produce before crops are harvested from fields didn’t detect anything.

“I want to say it’s bad news, because environmental contamination, particularly at the water level, that’s going to be extremely challenging for our growers to deal with. But it’s good to know where it came from. But we still don’t know where it came from. We still don’t know how it got into the water,” she said.