It was recently found also by the facilities out of NYC e.g. Canada that are processing prechecked vegetables, and they were not aware of the problem. Check with the hashgochas of the prechecked vegies.
Copepods are larger than mites. If the filters & Mashgichim didn't cath the copepods, they missed all of the mites as well.
UNLESS they never had filters, Mashgichim only saw the thrips & aphids. We're in trouble, I'm afraid.
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Do you mean in the Counties that also get their water from the NYC Watershed? Those are Westchester, Putnam & Dutchess. There are also probably small towns within a few hours of NYC that are among the roughly 10,000 small water districts in the US that have the copepod problem. It is a nightmare to investigate all these yehupitzvilles. There are other major cities with copepods like Seattle & Portland but it's not likely pre-checked vegetables are checked there. It is nogaya to find out for food factories there under the local hashgochos, depending on their policies.
A contractor named AER who shechts for Hebrew National – a ConAgra brand – in the Midwest allegedly engages in tax fraud, money laundering and worker abuse. And to top it all off, AER is allegedly cutting kashrus corners as well. A class action lawsuit has been filed.
http://www.ajwnews.com/archives/13634
Here's the lowdown, based on the story just posted by the American Jewish World:
• a shochet claims he was paid part of his salary in the US and the rest was paid to relatives in Israel by an Israeli AER rabbi (presumably in cash).
• shubim were sometimes forced to sleep four to a room in shoddy apartments on mattresses placed on the floor.
• shubim claim they have repeatedly complained about kashrus problems to Hebrew National's kosher supervisor, Triangle-K (headed by Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag, who lives in Flatbush but who is the outgoing chief rabbi of Amsterdam's modern orthodox kehillah). But, they claim, Ralbag ignored them.
• “[Ralbag and AER] did little or nothing to correct the transgressions. Rather, the persons making the complaints were terminated or otherwise threatened with adverse retaliation, such as job transfers to other facilities or States. In turn, non-kosher meat was delivered to ConAgra and packaged, labeled and sold to the public [including the plaintiffs in the lawsuit] as strictly 100% kosher,” a class action lawsuit filed in May against ConAgra doing business as Hebrew National reads. The suit says that ConAgra "is not living up to its self-proclaimed standard of kosher 'as defined by the most stringent Jews who follow Orthodox Jewish Law.'”
If any of this is true it means a return to the bad old days of 1980s and 90s non-glatt (and some glatt) shechita that was riddled with problems just like this.
"Therefore filters were installed by NYC's food facilities under Hashgocha"
This is the biggest scandal of all because almost none of the hashgochos are making sure the filters are maintained. The fliters get clogged with shmutz causing the shrotzim to overflow into the food. So what you have are places making false claims of filtering with the hashgochos as accomplices.
One of the few hashgochos btw that checks on filter replacement AND tests samples of water from time to time is Nirbater.
There is a mashgiach for what is considered to be a heimish hashgocho who was blabbering about something interesting. As the head mashgiach at a Pesach hotel he told guests that the hotel in this semi-remote area used well water which the rav hamachshir determined was infested and that the caterer was very upset when he was forced to install filters.
Because there are other places in this area where Yidden stay that draw from the same water source, people were attempting to get in touch with the rav hamachshir. It was almost impossible to get him on the phone. When someone finally reached him, he denied the whole story. His denial lav davka means anything as he has a history of being very evasive. He may have a motive to keep the story suppressed.
"shubim were sometimes forced to sleep four to a room in shoddy apartments on mattresses placed on the floor"
Sounds like Yankel Pollock was consulted. His excuse for it in BMG is that it's not good for shidduchim for bochurim to get too bakvemt.
Is the lettuce processing in Canadian cities or in the yehupetz? Quebec or Ontario?
Are copepods & mites fort big enough to get rid of with a little flick of the finger?
Is this for lettuce or frozen vegetables or both?
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