Background colors on Table Rows show up as 'Path' tag. How to remove?

Some background to set the scene. 8^)
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Section 508:
§1194.22 (b) addresses use of color. This paragraph maps to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 1.4.
Also, in WCAG 1.0 - Assuring that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen.
For individuals having color related vision deficits Adobe Reader and the Acrobat Products support a configuration that replaces document colors with the use of High-Contrast colors.
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So, to assure the PDF's table rows support use by individual's having an issue with color/color contrasts, best-practice is to adjust the authoring file (for you, the Word file) to remove the unnecessary background color.
It provides no content information and makes providing a valid Section 508 compliant PDF problematic.
Then, again, if the color use does provide seminal content information Section 508 / WCAG directs you to provide an accessible alternative.
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Alternatively, roll up the sleeves and climb into the structure tree to perform extensive manual editing.
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"Replace All" is rather nice in a text editor, word processor or page layout application. For myself, I'd be lost without such facilities.
However, as PDF is not a file format designed for that genre of activity Acrobat does not provide the tools found in such applications. That is for the PDF page content. Layered to that is the logical hierarchy which, in turn is orchastrated by the structure tree. Both of these are independent of page content (See ISO 32000-1 or the PDF References that proceeded the ISO Standard).
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My take on it is that authoring file formats (FrameMaker, InDesign, Word, what-not) are the coal that fuels the content mastering activity. The "squeeze" of providing the deliverables yields the final product - PDF (the 'diamond'). Diamonds don't perform well as "fuel" <G>
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thanks for the update.

We recently received a large group of PDF documents from a client with the same table set up. There were "Paths" throughout the table structure. We did not have access to the authoring document.

I worked hard making a few of the table squeeky clean by removing all the paths and empty tags. Then when I ran an accessibility report, I found that my PDF had broken in many different ways.

I went back to the original and read the tables with Read Out Loud. It reads fine, skipping the path information. The tables are scoped properly in the Table Editor. And they pass the Accessibility Checker.

So in our view, these tables are fully accessible. There seems no point in removing all the paths since they are doing no harm, and somehow are the glue holding the whole thing together.

I'd be interested if someone disagrees with this assessment.

Thanks, "devrag". Please, if anyone else has additional comments/experience on this, I'd be interested in hearing them, as well.