GM, 2 Firms Face Fines of $35 Million

General Motors Corp. and two landfill operators face fines of up to $35 million for burying sludge containing cancer-causing PCBs in New York, Ohio and Alabama, the government said Monday.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the sludge should have been incinerated.

GM’s forge in Massena, near the Canadian border about 75 miles southwest of Montreal, generated about 30,000 tons of the sludge, the EPA said. The agency said CWM Chemical Services Inc. and Cecos International Inc. buried it in landfills in the three states.

General Motors and CWM officials disputed the EPA’s conclusion that the dumping was illegal. Browning-Ferris Industries, Cecos’ parent company, had no immediate comment.

The EPA’s complaint proposed fining GM $14.1 million for generating the waste. Cecos and CWM would be fined $14.1 million and $7 million, respectively, for the portion that was dumped in New York state.

Melissa Jaeger, an EPA spokeswoman, said EPA regional offices with jurisdiction over the Ohio and Alabama landfills could decide to assess additional fines for the dumping there.

Jaeger said all the fines are negotiable if the companies offer to change their behavior.

“It certainly can be (reduced), especially if they say, ‘How about if you decrease it and we’ll do something environmentally sound and beneficial as an offset?’ ” she said. “We want people to comply with the laws.”

The sludge contained more than 500 parts per million of polychlorinated biphenyls.