COMING on the heels of the deadly outbreak of E. coli contamination in fresh spinach, the California food industry displayed admirable alacrity in its handling of a threat to Salinas Valley lettuce from a less-serious strain of fecal bacteria.
The grower, acting on its own, voluntarily but immediately recalled 8,500 cartons of lettuce after a reservoir filled from deep wells and used for irrigation was found to have been contaminated by a generic form of E. coli that is typically not dangerous to people but indicates a general lack of sanitation, according to experts.
The fact that this type of bacteria now is widely found in the environment should serve as a cautionary note if the United States is to escape public health problems common to Third World nations.
Protection of soil and water from fecal matter must be a paramount public policy. Once soil and water are severely contaminated by high bacteria levels, the health dangers become great and outbreaks like those in California could be repeated.
The spinach outbreak, due to the virulent E. coli strain 0157:H7, resulted in the hospitalization of 102 people and the deaths of at least three.
Most Americans take for granted that their soil and drinking water is free of such dangerous pathogens, but the reality is something else.A 2004 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Integrity Project asserted that sewage overflows both threaten the environment and constitute a public health crisis. Some 500,000 Americans become ill each year from contaminated drinking water, and as many as 3.5 million others get sick from swimming in water tainted by sewage overflows.
Nonetheless, the Bush Administration has slashed funding for programs that help communities meet water quality standards. And it supports megafarms, with thousands of livestock that concentrate huge quantities of manure and raise the threat of groundwater pollution.
Those are dangerous policies, but they tend to fly beneath the public radar. Important as they are, water and sewer projects just don't get much general attention - until a calamity such as the spinach contamination.
If this trend is not reversed, as with the $450 million sewer separation project under way in Toledo, Americans can expect periodic outbreaks of disease that could make them think they've landed in some Third World country. The California incidents are only a warning.
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