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Aboriginal Law Bulletin

Aboriginal Law Bulletin (ALB)
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Cultural Survival --- "Mohawks Make General Motors Pay" [1986] AboriginalLawB 5; (1986) 1(18) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 3


Mohawks Make General Motors Pay

Akwesasne, NY (IPN) - General Motors Corp last week agreed to pay $395,000 in fines for improperly using hazardous polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at its plant adjacent to the Mohawk reservation here. The number one US corporation was originally fined $507,000 under the Toxic Control Act.

Mohawk reservation leaders have often expressed concern over a toxic dump built by GM at its Massena Central Foundry Division plant. The EPA charged GM in 1983 with dumping 30,000 cubic yards of sludge at a site next to the Raquette Point area of the reservation. GM was also charged with storing 14,000 gallons of improperly identified PCB-laden oil. A large number of wells in the Raquette Point district have been tested by the NY State Department of Health and found to be contaminated with PCBs. Local residents have been warned not to drink or bathe with the well water.

EPA spokesperson Rich Cahill said the payment of the fine is an admission to the violations charged, however, GM spokesperson Dave Lippert denied GM admitted any wrongdoing.

Two weeks ago, Dr Ward Stone, the NY State Wildlife Pathologist found tests on a local snapping turtle showed it to be "highly contaminated with PCBs". Stone described levels of PCBs in the turtle's tissues of 835 parts per million, seven to twenty-eight times higher than accepted government levels.

Cultural Survival Quarterly
Vol 9, No 3, 1985


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