Is GM's $1.1 Billion Closed Factory Cleanup Fund Enough? Hidden Bailout On Its Way?

We sounded the alarm on the cost of cleaning-up abandoned automotive manufacturing sites before the bailout began. We sounded the alarm after the feds instructed GM set aside $1.1 billion to clean its 14 closed plants (so far). Although $78,571,428.60 per plant seems more than merely adequate, it may not be so. Reporting on the clean-up of GM’s Mansfield-Ontario Stamping Center, The Mansfield NewsJournal does a little comparative analysis. “At Ohio Brass, which, at 10 acres, was a small fraction of the size of the 270-acre stamping plant, that number [for the cost of the cleanup] was $2 million.” Extrapolating, that would be a $54 million laundry bill. BUT, it’s dwarf apples to “Rainy with a Chance of Meatballs” sized oranges. Many of GM factories stretch back decades, before there was anything remotely resembling environmental awareness or, more to the point, an EPA. Of course, a description of the pollutants at the plant would be very helpful in making a cost assessment. New “transparent” GM says uh-uh.

Local officials hold out hope they can persuade a buyer to purchase the site and assume many of the risks and costs. If they can’t, it’s difficult to know what environmental dangers may be uncovered. GM representatives won’t comment other than to direct reporters to bankruptcy filings, which don’t contain the records the state EPA will seek when GM officially announces the closure.

GM says don’t worry, be happy.

“I will make certain (GM chief restructuring officer Al Koch) reaches out when we wind down the operations,” Tim Lee, GM’s vice president for global manufacturing, said Friday.

Then again, why wouldn’t he?

According to state EPA guidelines issued in 1998, GM must do an environmental survey when it officially sets a closure date: completely fencing in the site, listing all known hazardous substances and disposing of those within three months. But the EPA directives don’t have the force of law, and while the worst sites are given Superfund money, a federally-financed program to mediate environmental disasters, many cases end up in the hands of local taxpayers.

In other words, if the costs of GM’s cleanup efforts top $1.1 billion, the rest will come from the taxpayers’ pockets from another funding source. How great is that? And what of Chrysler and Ford’s extraneous plants?