“... a very strong indicator of soil and/ or water contamination being the source.”
You mean the ‘most immediate’ source. The question would still be where did the E. Coli in the water come from ? It could have come from pigs or workers defacating in among the spinach and irrigation water spreading it to the plantings. Except they looked for pig tracks and didn’t find any. They didn’t seem to consider the workers defacating in the fields. Why not, if not for reasons of political correctness ?
I notice you didn’t mention on other possible reason for the absentee workers — they were illegals and afraid the investigation might look too closely into the workers’ backgrounds.
Depending on what part of the world people came from, they might not even realize there was anything wrong with using fields as toilets. Human waste is STILL used as fertilizer in parts of Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
The report addresses that question. The likely source was the cattle crossing the river at one of the numerous cattle crossings noted in the report and leached into the underground water & into the ungrouted irrigation wells.
Except they looked for pig tracks and didn’t find any.
After the fact. No pig tracks on a dried up patch of dirt where the spinach had been planted, grown, & harvested. Not a big surprise since there wasn't anything to eat in the field. But, both pig & cattle manure in the adjacent pasture did test positive for that specific sub-strain/ fingerprint of the 0157:H7 E coli bacteria identified in the outbreak. And those cattle had access to the river & crossed it at numerous points.
I notice you didn’t mention on other possible reason for the absentee workers — they were illegals and afraid the investigation might look too closely into the workers’ backgrounds.
You're referring to an event that was weeks before the investigators were on the scene. Of course the workers, legal, illegal, otherwise were absent--the field had been harvested.