Was Water a Factor in the Diarrhea Outbreak?

Michigan alone has reported more than 5,000 cases. In a typical year, it gets up to 50. People can be infected after eating food contaminated with Cyclospora, a parasite, but not from person-to-person contact. It can take two weeks for it to incubate, making it hard to trace a source. However, it is likely that there is not one type of produce that is the cause, but rather as Forbes reports, the problems can be traced to the agricultural system and failures in food safety. 

So, the question is how does it get into food? In a release, Craig Hedberg of the University of Minnesota said that the original source of the contamination is the feces of infected people. 

Close to half of farm irrigation is done with surface water, which can be easily contaminated with organisms like Cyclospora from human waste, garbage, and leaking sewage and septic systems. Contamination might come from farmworkers who tend and harvest produce. Because of their living conditions, these workers are vulnerable to infectious diseases over which they have little control, according to Amy Liebman, of the Migrant Clinicians Network.  

The workers often live in crowded employer-provided housing with poor sanitation. When they are in the fields, there are complaints about not being afforded adequate breaks. Liebman told Forbes that she does not think farmworkers are at the center of this outbreak, rather it’s more to do with irrigation water and how food is processed and packaged.

Food safety monitoring may be the bigger problem. Some are pointing to the cuts made last year by the Trump administration including by the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. Also, Cyclospora was deleted from part of the food safety surveillance system called FoodNet, the CDC’s Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network. One expert told Forbes that it could have provided an early warning or hints as to the source of the outbreak. However, FoodNet was never meant to spot emerging food-related illnesses but to monitor and address them from year to year. That said, according to Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, the division of CDC handling the current outbreak is quite inexperienced in this kind of outbreak investigation. 

Lake Powell is very close to reaching “dead pool,” where the reservoir does not have enough water to turn hydroelectric turbines to produce electricity. What remains in the lake would simply sit there—not flowing downriver to farms and millions of people.

While officials in the seven states in the basin are working on a short-term agreement on how to manage the river’s water, they have been unable to agree on how to share cuts to allocations. Still, efforts are being made to mitigate the shortage. Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming officials are coming up with a program funded by the Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the two reservoirs, to compensate farmers and ranchers for conserving Colorado River water. 

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has agreed with the federal government to keep 200,000-acre feet of water in Lake Mead this year in return for $65 million. In Aurora, Colorado, adjacent to Denver, officials have fined almost 170 customers who have violated water restrictions. Warnings have been issued to 2,500. 

The question remains whether it makes sense to continue to operate the two large reservoirs that are soon to be about 80 percent empty. Eric Balken of the Glen Canyon Institute told the Salt Lake Tribune that a lot of people are scratching their heads and saying at what point should we consider saving one of them, pointing out that Lake Powell is being propped up by sacrificing Lake Mead and Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming and Utah. He added that it’s time to think about reengineering the infrastructure at Glen Canyon Dam. Still, that won’t deliver any water, and Balken said the entire basin needs to figure out how to consume less.

Last year, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins launched the process to rescind the rule, which would remove protection for nearly 59 million acres of wilderness, saying, in part, that the current directive made it difficult to protect forests from wildfire. 

The science says otherwise. According to Environment America, roadless areas do not burn at significantly higher rates than other areas of national forests. A study in 2025 found that wildfires in national forests are more likely to start in proximity to roads and that building more of them could increase human-caused ignitions. 

After Rollins announced her intent, more than half a million people submitted public comments, of which 99 percent were in opposition to the plan. Now, Republicans are trying another tactic to repeal the roadless rule by attaching an amendment to the Wildfire Prevention Act, which supports prescribed burns and forest thinning to fight megafires. It’s currently stalled in the Senate.

So, what are the consequences of losing the roadless rule? A new study from the University of Washington and Conservation Science Partners, says plenty—starting with their finding that the roadless rule supports the drinking water supply for 25 million Americans. Furthermore, their research shows that forested lands provide higher quality water because soil microbes and plant roots filter contaminants before the water arrives at treatment facilities. Cleaner water requires less processing, reducing costs for public utilities. 

Roads can also harm biodiversity by spreading invasive weeds that are carried on tires and by fragmenting habitats that wildlife rely on. Most roads cross streams and rivers, which require culverts to allow fish to pass. However, according to researchers at Michigan State University the culverts rarely work, which leads to declines in the health of aquatic populations.

More than 4.2 million miles of public roads crisscross the lower 48 states—enough to reach the Moon and back nearly nine times, leaving only around five percent of the nation’s land roadless. Another thing researchers say we’d lose if the roadless rule is gone? Quiet. These protected wilderness areas are one of the few places on Earth you don’t have to worry about hearing the hum of traffic. 

The study was published in the journal PLOS Water.