Day: February 24, 2026💾

On October 4, 1957, Ground is broken on the Chevrolet Motor Division's Massena Aluminum Foundry, as part of production planning for a new car called the Chevrolet Corvair. In May 2007, GM announces facility will cease operations by December 2008. The company cites rising gas prices, which have put a damper on vehicle sales and caused the corporation's production capacity to outpace demand. The plant's workforce drops from over 500 in the early 2000's to approximately 250 by 2008. On April 23, 2009, the last part rolls off the line at GM Massena.

About halfway through the cleanup, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the site was far more polluted than originally thought. General Motors had left its 217-acre property in Massena laced with extremely toxic PCBs. PCB oil was used as a coolant until it was banned in the late 1970s. The EPA removed half a million tons of contaminated materials. The project has taken years. "We are down to the last active remediation," says Bruce Rasher, redevelopment manager for RACER trust, the federal entity that took over all of GM's abandoned properties when the automaker went bankrupt during the recession.

http://www.naphausa.org/chron-gm/
https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/36301/20180529/gm-land-in-massena-almost-cleaned-up-bitcoin-miners-among-the-suitors