Clay-Val not source of Westside trouble

Martin W. Pickett

Enough already. The direct attacks on Cla-Val as some sort of

non-caring, poison-spewing evil empire are not only inaccurate, they

are false and unfair.

Over the past few months as Costa Mesa has been considering

redevelopment, Cla-Val has been repeatedly maligned in public forums

and the media as some sort of out of control, toxic-producing company

that employs illegal workers at minimum wage with no benefits. The

most recent example is in the “Community Commentary” in the Sept. 11

edition of the Daily Pilot. Over the weekend, a large parking area on

the corner of 18th and Placentia was repaved. This is a good thing

for the area but does not necessarily smell pleasant. Cla-Val was

blamed for “belchings of burnt plastic/rubber” on Saturday night. Not

true, and in fact we do not deal with either plastics or rubber

manufacturing and we had no one working Saturday night.

We recognize that we are a large employer in the Westside of Costa

Mesa and take seriously our responsibility to be a good neighbor to

nearby residents. This applies to everything from air, water and

noise pollution to traffic congestion and the impact we have on the

city with our employees that work, live, shop and frequent local

businesses in the city.

Now for some facts:

Cla-Val employs 370 people at our Costa Mesa facility. More than

120 of our employees live in Costa Mesa. This is the world

headquarters of a very well-respected company that manufactures

automatic control valves used by municipal water companies (including

Costa Mesa), airport fueling valves used in most major airports

(including John Wayne and Los Angeles International) as well as most

U.S. Air Force bases, valves used by the U.S. Navy on most ships and

many other uses. We have subsidiary companies in Canada, England,

France and Switzerland supplying our valves in many countries around

the world.

Our firm has been located here since 1954 and we have an awesome

employee base of highly trained people who work very hard to produce

great products with great service at reasonable prices to our

customers. This is not an easy task. We do not employ illegal

workers. We do not have any minimum wage jobs. We do have full

medical coverage and dental benefits. We do have a 401k retirement

plan with company matching funds. We do have a profit-sharing bonus

program. We employ people from many diverse ethnic and geographical

backgrounds and are proud of our team.

Cla-Val cares about the environment and we care about the

community of Costa Mesa. For the past nine years we have spent

several million dollars improving our facility. We have addressed

issues of air, noise and storm water runoff. We are in full

compliance with South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD)

and the federal EPA and OSHA regulations. We are inspected annually

by several regulatory agencies and are in compliance with all

relevant rules and regulations. We have permits to operate our

business and currently have 59 permits and comply with local, county,

state and federal regulations. We believe that continual improvement

is not just a goal but also a reality over the past many years and

will continue into the future as well.

We have installed some 22 new and reconditioned (permitted)

baghouses that collect particulates from the atmosphere and enclosed

operations that produce these byproducts. We have changed processes

that formerly caused pollution problems. For more than 10 years we

have been chlorofluorocarbon-free by changing methods of

manufacturing. (This is the chemical CFC that dry cleaners have

recently had to eliminate.) We have changed our painting process to

eliminate VOCs (volatile organic compounds) by changing to water

based paints. Our foundry has changed the additives whereby furan and

oil based additives have been replaced by ester cured phenolic based

resins that are more environmentally safe as well as less odorous.

Many other operational changes have been made to address smaller

issues of odors and we continue to identify additional changes and

improvements that we will make. Http://www.scorecard.com tracks

release of chemicals to the environment. For the year currently on

the Web site, Cla-Val (Griswold Industries) is No. 95 on the list of

Orange County companies with eight pounds of “total environmental

released” inventory. This is very small in comparison to the top of

the list, with hundreds of thousands of pounds. This number has been

reduced since the year published and we are striving to reduce this

number further.

Cla-Val has made many changes to improve the cleanliness of our

storm water runoff, including structural changes as well as process

and work flow changes. The result is a continual improvement for each

successive year in the quality of our storm water for each of the

past five years.

We operate around the clock and have had to implement this work

schedule due to the cost of electricity. We have instituted many

changes as a result of our desire to be sensitive to noise issues for

our neighbors. We have built buildings, insulated areas and changed

locations in an attempt to mitigate this problem.

We are not claiming perfection, but we are claiming significant

intentional and ongoing improvement. This claim is a pledge to our

highly valued employees who work here and the residents who work

and/or live nearby that we will continue this process. The people at

Cla-Val take pride in what they do and this includes an ever

improving company, including an awareness and responsibility for

environmental concerns. The changes noted above have been ongoing for

many years and are not some sort of cosmetic reaction to recent city

politics. We have been operating in Costa Mesa for 49 years and will

continue to do so for many years to come.

Cla-Val is not the only business in town and falsely gets accused

for any odor, smoke or nuisance in the area. We manufacture valves

yet the complaints for plastic odors, burned rubber, tar, burnt

coffee etc. are inaccurately attributed to our operation. There are

other businesses in the area that are inattentive to problems they

create for our neighbors. We have and will address this situation

with the businesses we identify but cannot accept the role as the

producer or the cure all for Costa Mesa air, water or noise problems.

Cla-Val ownership, management and employees are committed to doing

our part. We urge the other businesses in the area to be proactive in

their own cleanup. We urge residents to try to understand that all

industry is not evil and that we provide valuable jobs and that the

solution for Costa Mesa problems is to work constructively together

toward improvement, not destructive, improperly uninformed attacks.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Martin W. Pickett is the president and CEO of

Clay-Val.