TULSA, OKLA. — Seventeen private water wells have tested positive for E. coli, Oklahoma officials said, near a town where an outbreak last summer killed one man and sickened hundreds of other people, according to The Associated Press. That outbreak was blamed on a restaurant in Locust Grove where many of those sickened had eaten.

But the state attorney general later suggested it may have been caused by well water contaminated by nearby poultry farms. The poultry industry denies the claim.

The state Department of Environmental Quality said Feb. 26 it was unable to link the rare strain of E. coli responsible for the outbreak to the bacteria discovered in the wells.

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