Hilmar Cheese is asking the Dallam County Commissioners Court to endorse the issuance of up to $24.5 million in bonds to finance part of an expansion of its plant outside Dalhart.
There will be a public hearing at 10 a.m. on July 19 in the courtroom of the Dallam County Courthouse to take oral and written comments, according to a legal notice posted Friday.
"It's the same process we went through for the first phase," said David Ahlem, site manager. "It's just a way for us to finance water reclamation and solid waste management."
The endorsement wouldn't obligate the county for payment of the bonds. Payment would be Hilmar's responsibility, according to state law.
"We reuse water to clean the plant," Ahlem said. "Then, after that, we remove the (organic matter), which we will use to produce methane gas that we will use to fuel a boiler. Then the remaining water goes to our irrigation system."
The expansion, which will roughly double the plant's capacity and allow it to produce 640-pound blocks of natural American-style cheese, will cost more than $100 million. It will house more milk storage and additional production lines.
The operation has about 200 employees and will begin hiring the first of about 50 more this month.
"We want to get folks on board and operating equipment," Ahlem said. "We hope to be up and running by the end of the year."
That schedule basically is unchanged from before a May 10 fire involving a refrigerated storage building that was under construction.
"It was a hurdle, but not a major setback," Ahlem said. "We didn't have any associated product loss or loss of operation."
The expansion comes at a time of rebounding cheese prices.
The price for 40-pound blocks of cheddar ranged from about $1.40 to $1.45 per pound during June, up from $1.15 a year earlier but less than the $2.15 price in 2008, according to the Agricultural Statistics Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Hilmar broke ground on the original plant in 2006 and benefited from economic development incentives from the Texas Enterprise Fund, the Amarillo Economic Development Corp., and various other local and state entities. The grants and tax exemptions, abatements and credits totaled about $45 million.