Residents in the neighborhood near San Benito Foods will sleep a
little better this summer because the company installed equipment
to lower the plant’s continuous, bellowing noise for the canning
season that starts next week.
Residents in the neighborhood near San Benito Foods will sleep a little better this summer because the company installed equipment to lower the plant’s continuous, bellowing noise for the canning season that starts next week.
Last summer, residents grumbled about the tomato cannery’s blustering steamers and cookers that run 24 hours a day – every day – for nearly three months a year.
And after a Hollister code enforcer’s noise measurements showed decibel levels potentially hazardous to neighbors’ long-term hearing, the cannery vowed to upgrade its equipment. At houses nearby, levels ranged from 69 to 91 decibels – the latter being about as loud as a continuously running motorcycle.
Company Vice President Steve Arnoldy thinks the alterations during the canning off-season show San Benito Foods is trying to be a good neighbor, he said.
Most of the equipment San Benito Foods replaced concentrates tomato juices – the company cans more than 100 tomato products. Those upgrades included replacement of jets – which shot steam soaring into the sky – with electric pumps. The company also modified its boiler room to diminish racket produced by steam exhaust that drives turbines inside the plant.
Arnoldy said the alterations carried “considerable” costs, but he declined to divulge how much money was involved. “It required a lot of work,” Arnoldy said.
Some residents interviewed in the area said they didn’t mind the noise last year. But others said the lowered cannery noise will boost neighbors’ quality of life.
Hazel Street resident Felix Solano lives across the street from the cannery. Last summer, he said he was forced to close all his windows and doors, and that he often couldn’t sleep at night. He even furnished his home with extra insulation to muffle the noise, he said.
“If this is as loud as it’s going to get, it’s beautiful,” Solano said, referring to the quiet that prevails now, before the canning season begins. “I’ll tell you what, we can sleep at night.”
Gary Marentis, a resident of Haydon Street about two blocks from the plant, has lived in the neighborhood his whole life.
He noticed an increase in noise last summer over previous years. But he pointed out that the plant was there before the houses – it opened in 1915 – and said the cannery’s roar has never bothered him.
But he wouldn’t mind less noise, either, he said.
“I’ve heard it all my life and got used to it,” Marentis said. “If there’s less noise, so much the better.”
Since the city’s vow toward the end of last year’s canning season to watch over the cannery’s progress, San Benito Foods has handled the upgrades on its own.
Hollister’s lone code enforcement officer Tim Burns, who measured the noise and communicated with the company on the issue, was placed on the city’s list of 36 layoffs earlier this year. That led to Burns taking another code enforcement job in Visalia.
Burns on Wednesday called the progress a “clear example” of how a city can respond to a community concerns. He also commended the cannery for its cooperation.
“That’s clearly a quality of life issue and it could become a safety issue,” Burns said from Visalia.
Current Hollister officials also said they’re pleased about San Benito Foods’ efforts. Councilman Robert Scattini said he heard many complaints about it last year.
“We need the cannery, but we also have to have the people live in peace,” he said.
