GM Plant Assessment Challenged

By DAVID WINTERS

Johnson News Service

MASSENA - Motors Liquidation Co. wants the assessment on the former General Motors Powertrain plant lowered from $12 million to $2,000.

Motors Liquidation is the company that took over GM's so-called bad assets when the company was restructured in bankruptcy. The Powertrain plant was included in those assets and isn't owned by the new GM.

Detroit-based Motors Liquidation filed suit against the town Tuesday seeking a reduction from $12,042,000 to $2,000. Also named in the suit are the town's assessor and the Board of Assessment Review.

The 862,000-square-foot plant sits on 224 acres along the St. Lawrence River, eight miles from the village of Massena. General Motors closed the plant last year, leaving hundreds unemployed.

"There won't be a reduction to $2,000," Town Assessor Michael A. Ward said Wednesday. "That number has never come up. It's just a number that a lawyer put down."

The taxes on the property using a $12 million assessment with the 2009 tax rate would be $375,021.04, versus a $2,000 assessment generating $62.48 in taxes, Mr. Ward said.

The assessment challenges from 2008 and 2009 remain in litigation. Motors Liquidation wants its assessment lowered on both years from $12 million to $3.75 million.

"We have had several conversations and a meeting with General Motors representatives in the last few months," Mr. Ward said. "We're working to find a resolution."

The plant is on the federal Environmental Protection Agency's list of Superfund sites. The old GM had spent millions of dollars over the past two decades removing polychlorinated biphenyl from land in the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation. That includes the 1990 dredging of a large area of the St. Lawrence River that was contaminated with PCBs.

In May, the federal Environmental Response Trust announced it was earmarking about $150 million to New York for cleanup of polluted auto manufacturing sites. The Massena property was expected to receive a majority of that funding.

The trust set aside $836 million for cleanup efforts of polluted auto manufacturing sites nationwide. The EPA and Motors Liquidation have said the Massena plant is by far the most severely and extensively polluted site in the liquidation firm's portfolio.

Motors Liquidation also plans to demolish the 862,000-square-foot plant in the coming months, allowing them to better access the contaminated soil underneath the building. A spokesperson for Motors Liquidation didn't respond to an e-mail request for comment Wednesday.