GM gets to dump its polluted sites

Source: Detroit Free Press

When General Motors Co. emerged from bankruptcy, it was freed of obligations for polluted properties at discarded plant sites that will require millions of dollars to clean up.


GM’s unusual, government-engineered bankruptcy allowed the Detroit automaker to emerge as a new company — and to shed billions in liabilities, including claims that governments had against GM for polluting.

Environmental liabilities estimated at $530 million were left with the old GM, which has only $1.2 billion to wind down.

. . .

Lawyers working on objections to GM's plans say bankruptcy lawyer fees alone could eat up a good portion of the GM wind-down budget, leaving little money for liabilities against the company.

GM estimated before bankruptcy that it had $1.9 billion in future liabilities for claims related to asbestos, product liability and additional litigation. In addition, the company estimated that unions other than the UAW were owed more than $3 billion in retiree health care and hundreds of millions more for retiree life insurance.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20090807/BUSINESS01/908070382

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New York town angry at pollution GM left behind
http://www.freep.com/article/20090807/BUSINESS01/90807020/1014/

AKWESASNE, N.Y. — Long before pollution by General Motors and area aluminum factories oozed into the soil and waterways, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe lived off the land here.

That was before the fish became deformed and a toxic chemical called PCBs — polychlorinated biphenyls — became part of the local lexicon.

GM’s Massena powertrain plant is probably the worst-polluted site among the more than 100 properties shed by the automaker in bankruptcy last month. Residents fear that subsequent cleanup efforts won’t go far enough to restore their way of life.

The factory, opened in 1959, neighbors the tribe’s reservation, where 11,500 people live.

The site contains several areas that “received thousands of tons of PCB-contaminated sludge from the dumping of hydraulic oil” and includes an open dump “as well as millions of gallons of open waste lagoons,” according to paperwork filed in GM’s bankruptcy case.

Ken Jock, the tribe’s environmental division director, called it mind-boggling that GM could be allowed to shed its responsibility to clean up the land.

“People are angry,” Jock said. “Somebody — maybe — will pick up the pieces, but we don’t see how that’s going to happen.”