REPORT: GM gets out from under its polluted sites scot-free
Next in the line of those clamoring for attention and payouts from Motors Liquidation Co., the company that was given all of GM's unwanted assets, are the environmental and economic redevelopment departments of state governments. General Motors was able to exit bankruptcy without responsibility for a number of factory and land sites that are polluted, and state leaders fear that there won't be any money to clean them up.
Before bankruptcy, GM estimated it had $1.9 billion in liability regarding environmental issues and litigation. Motors Liquidation Co., though, has only about $1.2 billion to manage the entire wind-down of its affairs – and as one might expect, attorneys handling the matter are expected to get a huge chunk of that. The figure to clean up sites in places like Buick City (pictured, before the buildings were demolished), Michigan and Massena, New York has been pegged at $530 million. However, the way it's looking, there won't be anywhere near that much money to get the job done.
The locally affected areas are afraid they will have to pay for the clean ups or simply let the land go unused. There are two big problems with that: many local governments don't have the money for these kind of projects right now, and they can't expect a developer to spend millions to clean up an old mess. If not Motors Liquidation or GM, civic representatives want the government to foot the bill since the current administration orchestrated the deal. No one knows how it will – or won't – be resolved, but the EPA has said that it is in touch with states and Motors Liquidation to "identify any environmental cleanup requirements that existed at the time of bankruptcy."
[Source: Freep | Photo Credit: Plan59]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Throwback 4:22PM (8/07/2009)
Something more for us tax payers to pony up for. The bailout that keeps on costing.
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why not the LS2LS7? 4:31PM (8/07/2009)
It is not a big imposition to leave the land unused in Flint. Land is very cheap there and it's not like the population is growing.
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meme 4:52PM (8/07/2009)
Wouldn't this fall under the jurisdiction of Superfund?
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Lad 5:57PM (8/07/2009)
This is one of those problems that's been around for decades and is one of the advantages business has in the U.S., the ability to walk away from polluted land and let the tax payer clean it up...we have sites here in NorCal that are left over from the gold mining days that have never been cleaned up...been on the superfund list for years. Good luck Flint!
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coyo t 6:13PM (8/07/2009)
to put it mildly, this kind of thing simply disgusts me. we need new to fix a lot of things so that our government can again govern
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/history_corporations_us.html
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Dave 7:36PM (8/07/2009)
"we need new to fix a lot of things so that our government can again govern"
Are you kidding?
City, state, federal governments, and especially the military are even worse polluters than GM.
I suspect that the vast majority of the issues on GM sites were created decades ago, especially during WWII when GM had to crank out jeeps, tanks, etc. at a frantic pace with no concern for the environment.
I don't know how old you are, but it wasnt that long ago (35 years or so) that ALL sewage and industrial waste was dumped untreated into waterways and landfills. GM was doing the same as everyone else.
The government governs more now than ever. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse.
Nixon 2:07AM (8/08/2009)
This has nothing to do with the bailouts GM got. This is just typical bankruptcy.
Which is yet another reason why Obama was pushing to restructure vs. the Republicans who wanted to let GM be dissolved and dismantalled by now. If they had gotten their way, GM would be gone, there would be zero dollars left for reclimation of any of these sites. Because every single penny would have already been swallowed up by debt-holders and we would be sitting here talking about how NOT giving GM any help at all, left nothing left to pay for any of the cleanup that needs to be done.
Now it Republicans would have stood up WITH Obama in order to back the restructure, we would all be talking about how GM was still on the hook for their cleanup of all these sites.
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Tim 9:13AM (8/08/2009)
Nixon said:
"If they had gotten their way, GM would be gone, there would be zero dollars left for reclamation (spell check) of any of these sites."
WRONG!
Had the law been followed and bankruptcy liquidation been allowed, there would be 5-10 new automakers who would have used private investor capital to purchase the assets of the old, bloated GM. These now independent privately owned automakers (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Opel, Vauxhall, Holden, Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, Saturn and Wuling) plus many others would have hired back the workers that GM laid off and they would now be competing against each other to make better, less expensive cars that we WANT to buy instead of cars currently designed by a gov't committee in DC.
Now for correcting your math… (very conservative numbers here)
Per this article: “Before bankruptcy, GM estimated it had $1.9 billion in liability regarding environmental issues and litigation. Motors Liquidation Co., though, has only about $1.2 billion to manage the entire wind-down of its affairs.”
Per the Autoblog article: ($97.4 Billion, with a B.)
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/20/total-bailout-bill-97-4-billion-with-a-b/
We’ll use rounding to make it easier for you public school graduates.
$97 Billion for bailouts minus $2Billion for clean up = $95+ Billion not needed.
That would have left about $95+ billion that were not needed for bailouts which could be used to clean up the sites. (I think we would have some real spare "change" from that transaction) The free market would have FIXED the problem $95Billion better than those idiot progressive politicians. (if they had only obeyed contract law)
Obviously, progressives just can't do math or are so busy thinking of ways to pick the pockets of others that they just don’t care about REAL math.
nixon 3:38PM (8/08/2009)
How much exactly do you think Buick City would sell for at a liquidation auction with $530 million in cleanup required on a property worth a fraction of that price?
There is a phrase on Jay Leno that the crowd would all shout out:
"Not Sold!!"
That is how all these properties get become ownerless and abandoned in bankruptcy proceedings and never get cleaned up by their owners.
The Anti-Tim is right about you.
mudder 1:28PM (8/08/2009)
Compare GM to Ford. Ford spent $2 billion making the Rouge site a showpiece for environmental restoration: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4843708/
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John Rowell 12:50AM (8/09/2009)
That picture is disturbing...resembles more the site of a decimated nuclear blast than it does a thriving commercial operation.
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Hank 7:13AM (8/09/2009)
Horribly stupefying repeat of a scene far too common in the NE & Rustbelt. I'm tired of driving past one contaminated site after another that these goons just get to walk away from w/out consequence.
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Dave 12:47AM (8/10/2009)
I suspect that the "goons" who polluted this site are mostly dead or in old folks homes by now.
"Elements of the 235 acre (951,000 m²) complex dated from 1904...The plant originated with Buick before the formation of General Motors. Other elements were built by early manufacturers and suppliers like Fisher Body. GM employment in the city peaked in 1978 at 77,000"
Dave 12:48AM (8/10/2009)
PS-
that was from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_City