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GM Agrees to Spend $28Mi to Restore, Protect Saginaw River and Bay

24 November 1998

General Motors Agrees to Spend $28 Million to Restore, Protect Saginaw River and Bay Settlement Agreement Calls for Cleanup of PCB-Contaminated River

    FORT SNELLING, Minn., Nov. 24 -- The Department of Justice
and the Interior Department U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today
that General Motors will spend over $28 million to restore and
protect the Saginaw River and Bay area.  The Saginaw River and Bay are
contaminated by PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and related compounds that
the federal government alleges have been released from General Motors
facilities since the early 1970's, as well as by contaminants released from
wastewater treatment plants in Bay City and Saginaw.
    "Today's settlement is good news for the people of Michigan and for all
Americans who care about the quality of our environment," said Lois J.
Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment
and Natural Resources Division.  "Under the settlement, General Motors is
required to finance a major cleanup of PCBs from the Saginaw River and Bay.
That means a cleaner and healthier environment for people who live in and
around the region."
    "This is a great day for birds, fish and all other species that depend on
the Saginaw River and its wetlands," U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director
Jamie Rappaport Clark said.  "This settlement begins a cooperative process to
undo the injury to important natural resources and to staunch the flow from
contaminated sediments that are a source of PCBs in the Saginaw River and
Saginaw Bay."
    The settlement resolves lawsuits filed today in the U.S. District Court
for the Eastern District of Michigan against GM and the two cities on behalf
of the natural resource trustees:  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the State
of Michigan, and the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe.
    Specifically, the settlement will result in the removal of contaminated
sediments from the Saginaw River, Michigan, and restore and protect habitat in
the Saginaw River and Bay area.  General Motors and the cities will pay
$28.22 million in direct costs for sediment removal and restoration projects.
The overall value of the settlement is significantly greater than this,
however, because the restoration projects are designed to increase
recreational use by improving fishing and boating access and by increasing the
quality and quantity of habitat for fish, game, and watchable wildlife.
    Service Regional Director Bill Hartwig explained that a portion of the
$28.22 million settlement payment will be used for habitat restoration for
fish and wildlife in the Saginaw Bay watershed, known as one of the premier
walleye and waterfowl locations in the Great Lakes area.  "This settlement is
the largest of any case brought by the Department of Interior as the lead
federal agency to recover natural resource damages," he noted.
    Dredging in the Saginaw River is scheduled to begin in 1999.  This
1-2 year project will remove approximately 345,000 cubic yards of contaminated
sediments, or approximately 90 percent of the mass of PCBs in the lower river.
Although not all risk to natural resources will be removed, experts believe
that additional restoration dredging would significantly increase physical
injury to habitat with little additional removal of PCBs.
    The settlement provides for acquisition, restoration and protection of
over 1,600 acres of habitat.  The land will be owned and managed by the State
of Michigan, the Service's Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, and the
Saginaw Chippewa Tribe.  Additionally, restoration is planned for acquired
lands which had been drained long ago for agricultural use, for fish habitat
between Saginaw Bay and Tobico Marsh, and for the Green Point Environmental
Learning Center in Saginaw.  Boat launches and nature-viewing opportunities
will be provided at two sites on the Saginaw River in Bay City, and at one
site on Saginaw Bay near Essexville as part of compensating the public for
injuries associated with the state's resources.
    The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice Environment and
Natural Resources division.  A notice of the proposed settlement will be
published in the Federal Register.
    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency
responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish and wildlife and
their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.  The Service
manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System comprising more
than 500 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands, and other
special management areas.  It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries and
78 ecological services field stations.
   The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered
Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally
significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as
wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts.  It
also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of
dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state wildlife
agencies.  Visit the Service on the Internet for more information:
http://www.fws.gov/r3pao/