The California Department of Health Services and the FDA have released their final report on the spinach E. coli outbreak.
Authorities for the first time said they had isolated the deadly E. coli strain on Paicines Ranch in San Benito County from a field the ranch leased to Mission Organics, a spinach grower.
They found E. coli "indistinguishable from the outbreak strain" in river water, cattle feces, and wild pig feces on the ranch within a mile a from the spinach fields, the California Department of Health Services and U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a joint report.
Investigators also said they could not make a "definitive determination" as to how the E. coli contaminated the spinach.
The Paicines Ranch, which breeds Angus cattle and quarter horses, said in a statement on its Web site that it leases land to crop growers and was not under investigation in the outbreak.