An E-Coli primer…
News
HIGH LEVELS OF E. COLI FOUND IN S.J. WATER
By Jeff Hood
January 15, 2007
Lodi Bureau Chief
If there is such a thing as an E. coli detective, Rob Atwill would be it.
The University of California, Davis, professor, who studies waterborne pathogens and last fall helped trace the source of a uniquely toxic strain of E. coli bacteria that contaminated spinach from the Salinas Valley, knows where to find it: inside all of us.
"We're heavily colonized by E. coli," Atwill said. "They consider us a field of grass, and they are grazing on us."
But scientists also are finding high levels of E. coli in some Delta waterways and tributaries, and they don't know why. The tests, begun in 2004 as part of a state investigation into the effects irrigating farmland has on surface water, are showing wildly fluctuating levels of E. coli bacteria in San Joaquin County drains that empty into the Delta.
Atwill said the E. coli found is typically nontoxic "background" bacteria found in animals.
"The one you've heard about with the spinach outbreak or some type of food-borne illness, that's a small subset of E. coli," Atwill said. "Those are the ones you worry about, but they're a minority of the numbers you're hearing up and down the Valley. The (test figures) overestimate the risk."
The state goal for E. coli in the Delta's recreational waters is an average of no more than 126 organisms in a 100-milliliter sample.
