Cleanup funds could enhance GM plant site
Mansfield News Journal – ONTARIO — Decisions on how to spend the Obama administration's new $800 million "trust fund" for environmental cleanup could make a difference for Richland County.
Should officials focus most of the cash on cleaning up the most polluted former GM plants? Or tidy up the more pollution-free plants, like the Ontario site, in hope of attracting new owners more quickly?
The president announced Tuesday that the Troubled Assets Relief Program would redevelop, clean up or decontaminate facilities shut down in GM's bankruptcy.
Many of the 90 sites are in Michigan. But eight sites in Ohio, including the former local GM plant, are eligible for cleanup funds, according to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown's office.
"It's critical that the communities that are home to former auto plants have the resources they need to clean them up and prepare the sites for new investment," Brown said.
