Sludge Watch ==> Sense of crisis lingers in spinach industry

[Maureen Reilly]

Posted on Sun, Sep. 24, 2006

Sense of crisis lingers in spinach industry
Latest E. coli outbreak is the ninth in 10 years in the area; contaminated 
water has long been one suspected source
By Jim Downing and Matt Weiser
SACRAMENTO BEE
SACRAMENTO - For more than a week, the million-dollar-a-day Salinas Valley 
spinach harvest idled as government investigators hunted for the source of 
an E. coli contamination that sickened people across the country.
Now, as scientists comb over 10 suspect farms in the valley, most other 
growers, within days, are likely to get the all-clear and send their spinach 
back to markets.
Yet a sense of crisis lingers over the industry because one scary thing is 
now clear:
This wasn't a fluke.
For nearly a decade, the Food and Drug Administration has zeroed in on the 
Salinas Valley - the "Salad Bowl of the Nation" - as a hot spot for 
food-borne illness. The latest E. coli outbreak is the ninth incident in the 
past decade to be traced back to the region, which produces two-thirds of 
the nation's spinach and much of its other fresh greens.
"The region grows great spinach. It has to grow great, safe spinach," said 
Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer at the FDA's Center for Food Safety 
and Applied Nutrition. "(The outbreak) does raise the question of what are 
the practices of that valley and what will it take to ensure the produce 
coming out of there is safe. We have got to get a handle on this."
State legislators also are promising to get tough. State Sen. Jeff Denham, 
R-Merced, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and incoming Assembly 
Agriculture Chairwoman Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, plan a joint hearing on the 
E. coli outbreak.
The biggest barrier to combating the Salinas Valley's recurring 
contamination problems has been the unsolved mystery of its specific cause: 
All previous outbreak investigations have failed to confirm the source of 
the harmful bacteria.
Water, contaminated by human or animal waste, has consistently been a 
leading suspect. Those bacteria can move to lettuce or spinach in myriad 
ways - from a creek flooding a field in winter to dirty water in a roadside 
ditch soaking a field worker's boot.
In the Salinas Valley, water troubles run deep.
Both the Salinas and San Benito rivers consistently contain fecal coliform 
bacteria, harbingers of E. coli contamination. As a result, both are 
considered "impaired" under the federal Clean Water Act.
Partly as a result of the poor quality of river water, most growers and 
cities use groundwater. Curtis Weeks, general manager of the Monterey County 
Water Resources Agency, said 97 percent of the water consumed in his county 
comes from groundwater, about 550,000 acre-feet per year.
Most farm wells are at least 200 feet deep, Weeks said, and water experts 
consider these sources safe from bacterial contamination because of the 
filtering action of the overlying soil.
But Bill Theyskens, a Salinas Valley hydrogeologist, said the area's heavy 
groundwater exploitation could open other paths for contamination. For 
instance, he said, the bore of an abandoned well can allow pathogens to 
enter groundwater from a failed septic system.
State regulators do not require growers to test irrigation water for 
contaminants. But many farm operations do so voluntarily in order to 
convince processors - and consumers - of the safety of their produce.
The prospect of bacterial contamination is just one of the groundwater 
worries in the region. Many wells bring up water contaminated with nitrates 
from farming or livestock operations. Saltwater, too, has seeped underground 
from Monterey Bay into aquifers depleted by decades of pumping.
For many years, water managers have recognized this situation as 
unsustainable. Yet growth has continued, and critics say the county 
continues to approve too many housing subdivisions that rely on wells for 
water and use underground septic tanks to treat household sewage -- another 
combination that could lead to contamination.
Two unincorporated towns near Salinas, San Jerardo and Chualar, already 
depend on bottled water for domestic consumption because wells in the area 
are loaded with nitrates.
"We have serious water problems," said Lupe Garcia, deputy director of 
LandWatch Monterey County. "We're setting ourselves up for a major disaster, 
basically."
As a partial solution to the water squeeze, the Monterey County Water 
Resources Agency in 1997 built a $78 million system to pipe highly treated 
wastewater to 12,000 of the county's 240,000 acres of farmland. The water is 
filtered and disinfected to meet drinking water standards. A study of the 
system, published by the National Academies Press in 2005, found no trace of 
E. coli in the delivered water, and none on crops irrigated with the water.
Now, though, that project is under fire. Last week, in response to the 
outbreak, state Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) promised legislation to ban 
reclaimed wastewater from vegetable crop irrigation.
But water experts said Florez's proposal might be too hasty. The reclaimed 
water is already among the most tightly regulated in California agriculture, 
said Christopher Rose, an environmental scientist with the Central Coast 
Regional Water Quality Control Board.
"If there were a problem with respect to bacteria in that water," Rose said, 
"it would be known."
Whatever the outcome of the current E. coli investigation, water quality 
will remain a vexing issue for Salinas vegetable producers.
"There's a risk to the whole industry," said Samuel Fromartz, author of 
"Organic Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew."
"You could have the best practices in the field," Fromartz said. "But if 
your water supply is tainted, what are you going to do about that?"

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/15597695.htm