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Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010

Our View: Give Hilmar Cheese the time it needs

Homegrown company deserves chance to evaluate sustainability of several technologies.

The Sun-Star firmly supports Hilmar Cheese Co.'s request Friday to the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Central Valley Region, in Sacramento for more time to meet a regulatory requirement.

We think the homegrown company that's become a global competitor deserves more time to evaluate the long-term operating costs and the economic sustainability of several technologies.

Hilmar Cheese experts are studying at least three ways to increase the production of high-quality reclaimed water at its plant in our county.

The water-quality board has laid out a rigorous timetable for Hilmar Cheese to comply with its demands to clean up the water it uses and reuses to make cheese and whey products for the world market.

Simply put, Hilmar Cheese is asking for a little more time to test three complex technologies that can help clean that water. None of them is cheap.

"The state wants us to hurry up and get there," CEO John Jeter told the Sun-Star editorial board Tuesday. "No one has ever used these technologies the way we are."

Hilmar Cheese wants to examine several ways to clean the water it uses. It fully supports the permit requiring the company to achieve the goal of all water treated in its water reclamation facility to be recycled for crop irrigation or for nonfood internal use in 2011.

We believe this is an eminently reasonable request. We believe the water-quality board should accept Hilmar Cheese's petition.

The privately held company, founded in 1984 by 12 dairy families, generally has been a good corporate citizen in our community. Besides the obvious benefit of providing some 800 well-paying jobs, Hilmar Cheese buys milk from more than 245 family-owned dairies within a 50-mile radius of its plant.

Its justly famous plant tours bring in 15,000 schoolchildren a year. It donates its products to nonprofits.

And it has become a major player in international markets, especially China and Japan.

For two decades, California has steadily been earning a justified reputation as an anti-business state. A study last year, "Cost of State Regulations on California Small Business" reckoned that those regulations and red tape cost $493 billion and 3.8 million jobs.

Hilmar Cheese isn't small business, but the impact of meeting a sometimes bewildering array of standards and orders is substantial on the company.

The Sun-Star believes CEO Jeter's rationale is a solid one: "If you're going to regulate us, let's figure out what the problem is."

Editorials are the opinion of the Merced Sun-Star editorial board. Members of the editorial board include Publisher Debra Kuykendall, Executive Editor Mike Tharp, Editorial Page Editor Keith Jones, Copy Desk Chief Jesse Chenault and Online Editor Brandon Bowers.