Senate committee weighs bills to prevent E. coli outbreaks

By: STEVE LAWRENCE - Associated Press Writer | Sunday, March 18, 2007 9:37 PM PDT ∞

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A state Senate committee this week will wade into the debate over how to prevent spinach, lettuce and other leafy vegetables from being contaminated with potentially deadly E. coli bacteria.

The Agriculture Committee has scheduled a hearing Tuesday on three bills that would: regulate water, fertilizer and toilet use in the fields; set up systems to trace, recall and quarantine contaminated produce; and require growers of leafy green vegetables to be licensed by the state.

The legislation would authorize fines of up to $25,000 and jail sentences of up to a year for violating the measures' provisions.

The bills were introduced by Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, after officials linked Salinas Valley spinach and lettuce grown in the Central Valley to E. coli outbreaks last year that killed at least three people and sickened about 300.

Instead of the bills, agriculture groups are touting a marketing agreement system they say will make the legislation unnecessary.

"There is no one in this industry who has any desire ... to play games with food safety," said Tim Chelling, vice president for communications for the Western Growers Association. "These folks are very much aware that whatever they do is under the scrutiny of the country. It's a top priority here."

The marketing agreement, he said, "is very specific and very detailed. It's testing and inspections and all that. This isn't your fox-guarding-the-henhouse-thing at all. Just the opposite."

But Elisa Odabashian, director of the West Coast office of Consumers Union, said the industry needs to be regulated by an impartial state agency.

"Self-regulation ... seldom protects consumers from contaminated and dangerous products," she said. "If the industry wants to regain the confidence of consumers, they are simply going to have to be regulated by someone other than themselves."

There are hundreds of strains of E. coli. Most are harmless, but one can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps and even kidney failure in humans. It can be found in the intestines of healthy cattle, sheep, goats and deer.

Most E. coli infections are caused by eating undercooked meat. It also be contracted by eating sprouts, lettuce or spinach that has been contaminated by manure.

One of Florez's bills, in an attempt to prevent such contamination, would set quality requirements for irrigation water, prohibit growers from using untreated manure for fertilizer and ban toilets from the fields.

It also would require the Department of Public Health to adopt additional acceptable practices for growing and processing leafy green vegetables, including testing water, soil and produce for contamination.

A second bill would authorize the department to set up an inspection program for leafy vegetables, license growers and adopt recall and quarantine procedures for contaminated produce.

The third would require growers and processors to set up a numbering system to enable officials to trace contaminated produce.

Lettuce and spinach processors have created their own regulatory system, tapping a 1937 marketing agreement law that is usually used to set packaging and quality requirements for agricultural products.

That program, approved in February by the Department of Food and Agriculture, is being developed by a 13-member, industry-dominated board. Supporters hope to have it in operation by April.

The industry system will include procedures on water testing, soil treatments, and sanitation for workers and tools. It also will call for inspections by the Department of Food and Agriculture and a tracking system, Chelling said.

Processors will refuse to accept crops from growers who don't follow the requirements, and produce grown using the system's procedures will be marked to assure consumers that it's safe, he said.

"If you waited for legislation, you might still be talking about this a year from now," Chelling said.

A similar marketing program is planned for growers.

But Odabashian complained that participation in the marketing agreement is voluntary and said she doesn't trust the state agriculture department to ensure that the industry's program works.

"The Department of Food and Agriculture is not the government body to oversee this industry," she said. "Their charge is to promote this industry. That is not in favor of consumers."

Florez said the regulatory approach is safest. The industry, he said, "says 'Let's put a Band-Aid on it and cross our fingers and hope there is not another E. coli outbreak."'

Spokesman Steve Lyle said the department has a long history of enforcing the requirements of marketing agreements.

"We will have people who will verify adherence by signatories to the marketing agreement to the standards they establish," he said. "But a lot of the particulars, such as what will the standards be and what will the inspection program look like, is work still to be done by the (marketing agreement) board."

Also this week:

ELECTORAL COLLEGE -- Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, is bringing back a bill that would award California's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. The measure would only take effect if states with a majority of electoral votes agreed to take the same step. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the proposal last year when it was an Assembly bill. Migden's measure is before the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee on Wednesday.

GLOBAL WARMING -- Also on Wednesday, the Senate Local Government Committee is scheduled to consider a bill by Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, that would require cities and counties to at least consider the potential effects of global warming when they approve subdivisions.

ASSEMBLY-WASHINGTON -- The Assembly has shut down most of its operations this week while more than 30 of its members take what has become an annual trip to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress for more federal funding for the state.

On the net: Read the bills, SB6, SB37, SB200, SB201 and SB202, at www.senate.ca.gov

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