Whey drinkers of Hilmar, rejoice!

Followers of the pollution caused by Hilmar Cheese, "the world's largest cheese plant" (WLCP), will recall that whenever the wastewater pollution achieves a level that state regulators can no longer comfortably ignore, the WLCP comes up with yet a new "black box" technology and requests an exemption from regulation to try it out for a few years. WLCP hires ace flak Michael Boccadoro, the Moutha Gold, to invite the public to marvel at WLCP's brilliant new black box, designed by the world's most ingenious engineers at enormous sums of money, which are always mentioned to show how hard the WLCP is trying.
The regulators ordinarily grant the exemption to test the new black box, it never works, the WLCP skates by environmental regulation for another year or two until the regulatory agency gets antsy again, whereupon the whole process repeats itself.
Nor is there any mention in this flakodoro "journalism" of the three most obvious facts in this case: Hilmar Cheese will not control its pollution of groundwater; it probably can't because it is the world's largest cheese plant; and it is already expanding its plant in Dalhart TX.
Badlands Journal editorial board

12-30-09
Modesto Bee
Hilmar Cheese eyes new treatment...John Holland. The Merced Sun-Star contributed to this report.
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/989646.html
HILMAR — Hilmar Cheese Co., which has worked for several years to solve problems with its waste water, is proposing a change in the treatment process.
The company is asking state regulators to allow the change in a part of the process that removes salts from the water.
The current system uses reverse osmosis — forcing water through a membrane to trap the salts — for up to 1.4 million gallons a day.
Up to 500,000 additional gallons do not go through this step because of a lack of capacity, but it is still "highly treated" in the other steps, said Michael Boccadoro, a public relations consultant to Hilmar Cheese.
The company proposes to replace the reverse osmosis with electrodialysis, which removes salts by applying an electrical current. Boccadoro said the alternative is being sought because reverse osmosis uses a lot of energy and the membranes often have to be cleared of trapped material.
The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board will consider the proposal at its Jan. 27-29 meeting in Rancho Cordova. The board's staff has recommended approval of the change.
Hilmar Cheese, whose Lander Avenue complex is the world's largest cheese plant, paid $3 million in 2006 to settle a pollution case brought by the board. Since then, the company has operated under a permit aimed at preventing future problems.
Boccadoro said the plant has spent more than $150 million on the treatment process. It includes trucking away some of the solids for energy production, reducing other material via digestion by microbes, putting waste water through filters and reverse osmosis, injecting concentrated material into deep wells, and using the treated waste water to irrigate nearby farmland.
The permit allows irrigating with the water that is less than fully treated while Hilmar Cheese works toward a long-term solution. Monitoring so far has not found contamination of nearby water supplies, Boccadoro said.
The proposed change would be in a new permit that already has drawn fire from at least one environmental group.
"It's an absolutely horrible permit," said Bill Jennings, president of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "This is a poster child for the failure of the regional board to seriously address water pollution problems in the Central Valley."
Under the proposal, Hilmar Cheese would test electrodialysis in early 2010 and install it by July 2011 if it proves worthwhile. If not, the plant would continue using reverse osmosis.
The proposal includes an increase in the maximum discharge from 1.9 million to 2.5 million gallons of water a day, once the treatment improvements are done.
"We look forward to working with the regional board on development of updated water reclamation requirements for our facility," Burt Fleischer, the company's environmental director, said in a written statement.

Notes:
(1) COMMENTS ON A PROPOSED HILMAR CHEESE COMPANY WELL
Sept. 9, 2005: Letter to Editor, Modesto Bee
These remarks are intended to supplement more technical comments made in a letter sent to The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early August. If you have ever filled a balloon with water and squeezed it, you know that, when you push on one side, you cause the balloon to bulge out elsewhere. The same principle applies to water underground. When you inject water into a saturated aquifer underground, you force water already there to go elsewhere. That; “elsewhere” has to be upward. The water in the rocks above that aquifer is quite salty for perhaps 2,000 feet and, when that salty water moves upward, it will mix with good water and ruin it for human use.
It would be bad enough if that overlying salty water only moved upward next to the well, but it can go a mile or more in any direction before contaminating near-surface good water, The injected water itself won’t show up near the surface for a long time, but the salty water it pushes ahead of itself can show up in a fairly short time.
I am amazed that EPA technical people did not reject this injection well proposal immediately, given the situation I have described.
/ ORIGINAL SIGNED /
Vance C. Kennedy, Ph, D.
Retired Hydrologist.
5052 Tully Road
Modesto, Ca. 95356
August 6, 2005
-----------------
To: Eric Byous, U.S EPA, Region 9
From: Vance C. Kennedy
Subject: Proposed injection of wastes into a deep aquifer by the Hilmar Cheese Company
These comments relate to the above subject. I will first present a series of questions and follow with a discussion of what I believe are major problems with the proposal.
Question 1. A representative of the California Regional Quality Control Board said that the Board bad no official knowledge of the well proposal. Why not? Does the Board have no jurisdiction?. One would think that such a proposal would be of concern to them, given the points mentioned below.
Question 2. What is the expected chemistry of the injected water and that of the receiving water?
Question 3. What is the salinity of water at various depths fix several thousand fret around the proposed well? See comments below for reasons for this question.
Question 4. What are the relative densities of injected and receiving waters?
Question 5. Does anyone question the statement that water is incompressible? If not, then the discussion presented below should be pertinent.
As a generalization, in sedimentary rocks, the horizontal permeability to water flow us considerably greater than the vertical permeability. Thus, water injected under pressure will flow laterally until the resistance to flow laterally becomes a significant fraction of the resistance to vertical water flow. Then, some displaced water will move toward the surface, pushing deeper saline groundwater upward into shallow aquifers. That upward movement can be tortuous and delayed greatly in time. But, the displacement has to happen due to the incompressibility of water. Furthermore, it is not the chemistry of the injected water as much as the chemistry of the displaced water that is the problem initially. Even if one injected distilled water, the same displacement upward of saline water would occur. Legally, it might be a lifetime before the actual injected water neared the surface and could be identified as coming from Hilmar Cheese, The displaced saline water can be expected to contaminate near-surface aquifers much sooner.
If the injected water is less dense than the receiving water, it will tend to float upward and push saline water upward also, but very slowly. Thus, the regulators may well be gone long before that becomes an obvious problem. Not to worry?
When groundwater is contaminated, it is not a simple matter to clean it up by flushing with clean water. To understand why, picture through-going channels in the aquifer bounded by areas of essentially immobile water in tiny openings. The contaminant flows in the open channels readily but can only penetrate the tiny pores by diffusion, whose rate is concentration dependent. When clean water flushes out the open channels, the contaminants in the pores will diffuse slowly into the open channels until temporary equilibrium is reached or new flushing is done. The process can be repeated over and over, but, as the concentration of the contaminant decreases, the rate of diffusion slows also and “complete” cleaning will take forever. Adsorption processes slow cleaning as well.
In summary, the damage done by deep well injection to shallow aquifers may take years to show up, but, when it does, the damage can be far from the injection well and be impossible to tie to that well. Because the actual injected water is the pusher, that water may stay a long time in the deep injected aquifer before moving upward.
The Modesto Bee has expressed concern about the Hilmar well, so I am sending a copy of this letter to them. The subject is obviously a matter of some public interest. My background is that of a hydrologist that has been involved in studies of contaminant transport in natural water systems. A 5-minute presentation seems inadequate to cover the items discussed in this letter. If you wish to discuss these comments prior to the meeting. I can be reached at 209 545 3575.
Vance C. Kennedy, PhD.
(2) Badlands Journal
11-24-05
Upcoming Hilmar Cheese decision stinks
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2005-11-24/0014
The Central Valley regional Water Quality Control Board is set to approve a deal between regulators and Hilmar Cheese Co. on Nov. 29 that would “grant the world’s largest cheesemaker sweeping immunity for hundreds of water pollution violations – and for future offenses.” (1)
How did this happen? We can only guess.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Hilmar Cheese founder, Chuck Ahlem, to the state Department of Food and Agriculture in January 2004, apparently under the apprehension Ahlem was an “environmental” dairyman. (2) When the Sacramento Bee broke the story this year that Hilmar Cheese – far from being an icon of environmentalism – had been cited by this same board numerous times for water quality violations and, somehow, nothing had been done about them. Exposed, Ahlem resigned from the CDFA and the water quality board fined the cheese company $4 million. Some in the Valley thought the fine made a good press release.
After a plan was announced two months ago that Hilmar would inject its wastewater thousands of feet down, to loud public disbelief and derision, the story quieted down and went behind closed doors. Meanwhile, it was discovered the board needed some new members and the governor appointed them. There were six vacancies on the nine-member board that needed immediate attention from the governor. Five are mentioned on the water board’s website:
His appointments are:
Linda Adams, 56, of Sacramento, has been appointed to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. She most recently served as chief of staff to the state controller from 2004 to 2005. Previously, Adams was a member of the California Performance Review, director of the Department of Water Resources, legislative secretary and chief deputy legislative secretary to the governor and principal consultant to the Senate Agriculture & Water Resources Committee. She is a member of the board of directors of the Sacramento Local Conservation Corps. Adams is a Democrat.
Paul Betancourt, 46, of Kerman, has been appointed to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. He has been managing partner of VF Farms since 1983, a family farming operation. Betancourt also writes a monthly column on agriculture and urban issues for the Fresno Business Journal. He is a member of the Kerman Unified School Board, Fresno County Farm Bureau, Valley Clean Air Now Board and San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District-Community Advisory Committee. Betancourt is a Republican.
Kate Hart, 34, of Granite Bay, has been appointed to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. She has served as associate attorney with Trainor Robertson since 2004. Previously, Hart served as associate attorney with Reed Smith and Woods and Daube. She is a member of Trout Unlimited and CalTrout. Hart is a Republican. On 11 November 2005, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the following appointments:
Sopac Mulholland, 60, of Springville, has been appointed to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. She has served as the executive director of the Sequoia Riverlands Trust since 2002. Mulholland was previously interim executive director for the Economic Development Corporation of Tulare County from 1998 to 1999. She is also the owner and operator of River Valley Ranch, McCarthy Creek Ranch and Quail Run Ranch. Mulholland is a former member of the Occupational and Health Standards Board. Mulholland is a Republican.
Dan Odenweller, 60, of Stockton, has been appointed to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. He most recently served as a fishery biologist and manager in the Habitat Conservation Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries from 2001 to 2004. Odenweller previously served with the California Department of Fish and Game from 1971 to 2001, retiring as a senior fishery biologist. He is a member of the American Fisheries Society, the Sierra Club and Delta Flyfishers. Odenweller is a Republican. These positions require Senate confirmation. The compensation is $100 per diem.
Hilmar can count of local support from elected officials. Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced is a member of the House Resources and Agriculture committees, and is co-author with Rep. RichPAC Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy of the Gut-the-ESA bill. State Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Salinas (or Merced – he can’t quite remember which) is chairman of the state Sen. Agriculture Committee. State Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy, is chairwoman of the Assembly Agriculture Committee, a member of Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife, and of the Assembly Select Committee on Water, Infrastructure and the Economy. Each is a beneficiary of dairy largesse through the various associations and PACs the industry generates as abundantly as it produces government commodities.
Monday, an official of the State Water Resources Control Board, which oversees the state’s regional water quality boards, wrote the Central Valley board urging it to reject this settlement.
"We are deeply concerned with the precedent of granting immunity from civil liability for all such past and future violations," said John Norton, chief of the state Office of Statewide Initiatives.
Three of the Republicans among the five new appointees to the Central Valley board for which we have public information would seem capable of voting for anything pro-agriculture, anti-environmental, particularly when it would help a prominent Republican dairyman, despite the decision stinking as highly as Hilmar on a bad day.
If this happens, it would remain to be seen what power the state board would have to remedy the injustice done to the people in and around Hilmar. If the executive branch, after a belated but real beginning to bring the cheese company to heel, returns to its corrupt habits under what must be considerable political pressure, a judicial approach should be sought if one is possible.
California is the nation’s top dairy state and the dairy industry is historically a powerful, rich lobby in Sacramento and Washington. Although industry pricing (including subsidies) remains an unfathomable mystery, even to most dairy producers, from time to time its lobbying enthusiasm gets exposed. The last time this happened was called the “milk-fund scandal.” It was revealed as a by-product of the Watergate investigation. (4)
Bill Hatch
(3) Badlands Journal
2-1-06
Deep-injection loopholes for Big Cheese?
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2006-02-01/0050
We had some problems with this letter from Hilmar Cheese CEO, John Jeter, printed in the
Modesto Bee, Jan. 29, 2006, Salty waste water a tricky dilemma...John Jeter, chief executive officer of Hilmar Cheese Co.
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/community/story/11744886p-12466835c.html
First, the fundamental dilemma the plant finds itself in is not mentioned: it is the "largest cheese plant in the world." The assumption that largest is best is never challenged, yet obviously, it is the amount of the waste it generates that causes the dilemma.
Secondly, we find Jeter representing the conclusions of a federal Environmental Protection Agency study on 500 "Class I wells in 14 states." The 1996 EPA study we found on the Internet by that title did not support the conclusion Jeter reached and included information that aquifer studies had been done in the Southeast, Texas and Kansas, but not in California. It does not appear that "underground injection of brines" is old news to California, just because hundreds of deep injection wells exist already in other parts of the nation. There are a number of lawsuits mentioned on the Internet, available to all in a 30-second study, in Florida, Texas and Michigan, that challenge Jeter's claims the wells don't leak and don't fail.
A foreign suit against deep injection wells that jumped out at us was in Siberia, against the deep injection of nuclear wastes.
Reading the 1996 EPA study, we learned that "leadership" in this technology has been provided by US chemical companies. It made us wonder how much cummulative contamination of deep aquifers in the US has already taken place.
Third, without adequate studies of the underground aquifers in Merced County, we wonder how any valid tests can be made of the effects of the proposed well on the aquifer. It is in the nature of this technology, apparently, that the damage is only noticed years after deep injection begins.
Last, we challenge Jeter's conclusions. Hilmar's salt management problem is the problem of the producer of the salt. It becomes the public's problem when it pollutes. The public's problem is to protect itself from Hilmar's salt. The public's solution is government regulation. It is fair, I think to say, that Hilmar Cheese became the largest cheese factory in the world in part as the result of the regional water quality board for years "relaxing" its pollution regulation of Hilmar. After Hilmar had become the largest cheese factory in the world, the press (Sacramento Bee) exposed the pattern of corruption of the water board. The board responded by getting tough on Hilmar, after which about half its members resigned or retired.
Hilmar successfully used the "black box" strategy to avoid regulation by the state. This strategy works on the principle that "new technology" will always solve pollution problems. Therefore, while the company is investing in new technologies -- whether they work or not -- the company keeps growing and the regulator "cooperates" with the company in experiments with environmental pollution. The public is asked to accept the damage in the cause of the progress of technology. Meanwhile, whether the technology works or not, everybody gets paid and the environment gets more polluted and the regulating agency can justify its relaxation on the basis of "black-box development."
The figure of $15 million is constantly repeated in connection with Hilmar's investment in a black box that failed to remove salt from its wastewater as the company kept growing. We'll just take a wild guess they invested much less in state and federal legislators and got a lot bigger bang for the buck. For example, how much Hilmar political largesse flows into the third floor of the Merced County Administrative Building? At one end of the hall are the pockets and offices of of Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced; at the other end are those local land-use decision-makers, the Merced County Board of Supervisors.
As for the principle of "cooperation" the Hilmar infomercial calls for, it looks suspiciously like the corporation is asking the public to uncritically accept yet another backroom deal between this polluter and another regulator for the purpose of the corporation's profits and so, presumably, it won't have to move to Dalhart TX, where, according to corporate propaganda, the public would be more "cooperative" in allowing its environment to be polluted.
Corporations like Hilmar, politically connected in powerfully lobbying industries, have been able to politically bargain to get regulators to "relax" regulations the government has placed on huge (polluting) corporations to defend the public against pollution. In this piece, which we suggest might have been written by a PR firm (the Dolphin Group, for example) rather than by Jeter himself, we have the regulated corporation complaining against the state regulation and representing or misrepresenting
itself as spokesman for the federal regulator. In Hilmar's case, it has had the lobbying power of the dairy industry (or some portion of it) behind it all the way.
However, as far as we know, Hilmar Cheese does not yet own even one department in the federal EPA. At least theoretically, even in this administration, EPA is a public, not a private agency, with its own spokespersons and officials, capable of expressing EPA policies without the help of Hilmar's PR firm.
The public would like to know if the EPA now allows and encourages regulated corporations to speak for it.
Jeter's concluding remark --"Hilmar Cheese Co. wants to be a part of the solution and protect our land and water, and conserve energy resources for future generations" -- is just off the wall in light of its record. As for conserving energy resources, is Jeter sending a message to the Bush administration about the Enron trial? Or is Hilmar drilling for oil and gas?
However, a fundamental problem remains. No agency appears to have jurisdiction over either the supply or quality of groundwater. The moment Hilmar's surface wastewater is injected into wells, it appears to escape any government regulation beyond monitoring of the well itself. Perhaps these wells should be called "deep-injection loopholes."
Bill Hatch
(4) Sacramento Bee
11-05
Don't let polluters off easy, state says...Chris Bowman
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/v-print/story/13892086p-14731032c.html
Top state water-quality enforcers on Monday blasted a proposed settlement that would grant the world's largest cheesemaker sweeping immunity for hundreds of water pollution violations - and for future offenses. The officials said the proposed deal between Central Valley regulators and Hilmar Cheese Co. sets a bad precedent and offers scant justification for dropping all violations stemming from years of dumping putrid, poorly treated wastewater on open fields near its Merced County factory. In a letter Monday, the officials urged members of the state's Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board to reject the settlement, which is scheduled for the board's vote Nov. 29. "We are deeply concerned with the precedent of granting immunity from civil liability for all such past and future violations," said John Norton, chief of the state Office of Statewide Initiatives.