Center of E. Coli Outbreak, Center of Anxiety

[Snowy Owl]

<nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" "> Center of E. Coli Outbreak, Center of Anxiety
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/us/25ecoli.html?ex=1159329600&en=d48826e2a4f524bc&ei= 5087%0A

</nyt_headline>

<script language="javascript"> <!-- function submitCCCForm(){ PopUp = window.open('', '_Icon','location=no,toolbar=no,status=no,width=65 0,height=550,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes'); this.document.cccform.submit(); } // --> </script> <form name="cccform" action="https://s100.copyright.com/CommonApp/LoadingApplication.jsp" target="_Icon"><input name="Title" value="Center of E. Coli Outbreak, Center of Anxiety" type="hidden"><input name="Author" value="By JESSE McKINLEY" type="hidden"><input name="ContentID" value="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/us/25ecoli.html" type="hidden"><input name="FormatType" value="default" type="hidden"><input name="PublicationDate" value="SEP 25 2006" type="hidden"><input name="PublisherName" value="The New York Times" type="hidden"><input name="Publication" value="nytimes.com" type="hidden"></form> <!-- ADXINFO classification="button" campaign="foxsearch2006-emailtools13-nyt5"-->




<nyt_byline version="1.0" type=" "> </nyt_byline>By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: September 25, 2006
<!--NYT_INLINE_IMAGE_POSITION1 --> <nyt_text> </nyt_text>SALINAS, Calif., Sept. 22 ? For the last week, on farms up and down the Salinas Valley, a group of invisible men have been looking for an invisible bug.


Workers tending to a field of lettuce in San Benito County, Calif. An outbreak of E. coli has rippled through the agriculture industry in the region.

Related

As Children Suffer, Parents Agonize Over Spinach (September 24, 2006)



The New York Times
Three counties in California await word on an outbreak?s source.



The men, federal and state health inspectors, have been hunting the source of an outbreak of E. coli bacteria in tainted spinach that has killed at least one person and sickened about 170 others in 25 states. Five companies have recalled products, and while the search has been slow and painstaking, federal officials caution that they may never find the exact source of the outbreak


Nowhere has the uncertainty been more acute than in the three California counties ? Monterey, San Benito and Santa Clara ? where the outbreak has been centered. That sense of worry was probably heightened on Friday when the Food and Drug Administration gave the all-clear to spinach produced anywhere but those three counties.
?Everybody is anxious for resolution,? said Eric Lauritzen, the Monterey County agricultural commissioner. ?And I?m sure the consuming public is as well.?
In an industry that is equal parts science and Steinbeck, the halt in the spinach harvest ripples through all kinds of businesses and trades, from pickers left without work to packers left without product to restaurateurs left without ingredients.
The agriculture business is the biggest employer here, and trade leaders say the spinach crisis could cost $100 million if it goes on for a month. Farm officials are concerned about the entire salad industry, which has grown rapidly over the last decade as fresh bagged lettuce and other greens have become popular.


In conversations in the lower Salinas Valley, a fertile, sun-baked strip that runs some 30 miles from Salinas to Soledad, even those whose jobs are far from the fields expressed concern for farmers. And as every day passes, the worry grows that this year?s harvest, and maybe those in years to come, have been dealt a crippling blow.
?Anybody you talk to in this valley, the question is, is this going take out anything that?s in a bag,? said Mike Foster, 35, a firefighter in Chualar, a roadside town outside Salinas. ?And how?s that going to affect everything else: are people going to stop eating salad mix? Lettuce? Bags of apples??
Mr. Lauritzen, whose Salinas office sits on Abbott Street, a dusty road where farm-related equipment shops, chemical warehouses and refrigeration companies sit side by side, said he had been on the phone all week trying to answer questions and settle nerves. ?I couldn?t begin to describe my week,? he said wearily.


Some have complained about a lack of concrete information. The authorities have not said which farms they are looking at, though they say there are nine. They also say about 20 inspectors are on the job, but no federal laboratory findings have been released.
Earthbound Farm in San Juan Bautista, which is believed to have supplied the tainted spinach, acted pre-emptively, saying Wednesday that its plant had been declared clean by a private laboratory.
Mr. Lauritzen said the health of those sickened by the outbreak remained the major concern of those in the agricultural industry. But just down the street sits a reminder of the local impact: River Ranch Fresh Foods, which last Sunday announced a voluntary recall of its salad mix.


In Gonzales, 17 miles southeast of Salinas, packing plants line both sides of the railroad tracks that bisect the valley, and boxes of vegetables line the walls of soaring coolers and refrigerated storage rooms. Residents there say that the recent problems with E. coli ? there have been at least eight outbreaks in the valley since 1995 ? are a new development in an old business.
?My dad raised spinach his entire life, and I never heard of E. coli,? said Joe Miranda, 77, a lifelong resident of Gonzales and a former ranch worker. ?I?ve been in spinach up to here,? he said, pointing to his knee, ?and I never heard anything like that.?
Like many in the valley, Mr. Miranda had heard rumors about the cause of this outbreak ? portable toilets being spilled onto crops, or rodents and rabbits dirtying a batch with their feces ? but said he suspected that lapses in modern farming techniques, including using unclean irrigation water, had fouled the works. ?The way they farm nowadays,? he said, ?they might just have to start over.?


The outbreak has been the lead story in the Spanish-language news media, whose newspapers have described ?panic? and television announcers have wondered about the spinach shutdown?s effect on Latinos, a group already concerned about pending immigration laws.
?Yeah, we?re worried about it,? said Robert Gomez, 57, the campus supervisor at Anzar High School, just down the road from the Earthbound Farm processing plant. ?Its a low-income area, a lot of families, our families, work there. If they slow down, or lay people off, it?s going to hurt us.?
In Soledad, where signs announce the town?s motto ? ?Feel the Momentum? ? residents say they worry that the federal reaction has been too slow and the news media?s reaction too hasty. ?I would like to see some data on what E. coli rates are for another two weeks of the year,? said Adele Skinner, a retired school worker. ?I think it?s all been a little overblown.?


Her husband, Prescott, sat beside her in the Soledad Bar and Grill, a tavern hidden in the side room of a bowling alley. ?To Soledad, farming is everything,? Mr. Skinner said, nursing a glass of ros?. ?It always has been, and it always will be. They?ll come back from this.?
That optimism was also in evidence in Salinas, where agricultural leaders had repeatedly assembled to offer their condolences to victims and to plan strategy. On Thursday at the National Steinbeck Center, they announced a new series of farming guidelines, including advanced testing of water and soil, and new machinery. After they spoke, two new spinach harvesters idled outside the center, flanked by two workers decked out in sanitary gear.


By Friday, however, such theatrics had given way to the day-to-day grind of farm life. Tara Mackay, a waitress at the First Awakenings restaurant in Salinas, where farmers often convene before dawn, said her regulars had been in that morning as usual.


?There?s not really much to talk about until they figure it out,? Ms. Mackay said, adding that she had heard rumors about the outbreak?s cause. ?But when you hear that sort of stuff, you do kind of think, ?I?ll eat broccoli.? ?