LANSING – More than half the number of now-shuttered General Motors auto plants the federal government plans to clean up are located in Michigan, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm said the effort will help the state’s “Project Phoenix” to redevelop those sites.
In a telephone press conference, Granholm said the effort should help attract companies to the state that were unwilling to take on the potential liability a cleanup could entail. Some of the sites, such as Buick City, have been idle for decades and cleanup issues have been the biggest impediment to redeveloping the sites, she said.
The federal government announced as part of its summit on auto plants and communities that $800 million would be put in a trust fund for cleaning up the sites of 90 former General Motors automotive plants across the country. Michigan has a total 47 of those plants located in many of the cities that historically housed automotive operations including Detroit, Pontiac, Lansing, Saginaw, Wyoming and Ypsilanti.
Many of the sites are in excess of 200 acres in size, including the Willow Run plant, which played a role in the state developing the Michigan Economic Growth Authority.
On her recent trade mission to Germany, Granholm said she had met with a company that could have located on one of the sites, but would not because of the potential liability. Now, the state could go back to that company and say it could restructure the site with that firm’s needs in mind.
Of the $800 million, paid out of the proceeds of the GM bankruptcy, $500 million will go for actual cleanup and another $300 million will go for demolition, Granholm said.
Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have said the $800 million should be enough to cover the cost of remediation of all the plants nationwide, Granholm said. Michigan should get the bulk of the funding, she said.
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