Dozens of Companies Could Be Liable for Onondaga Lake Cleanup

National Grid US, General Electric, and dozens of other companies could be held liable for cleaning up contamination at New York’s Onondaga Lake, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

It’s not clear that a 2011 settlement that resolved General Motors Co.'s environmental liability for some of its properties covered the lake, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said.

GM operated a manufacturing plant between 1950s and 1993 that contaminated the lake with chemical pollutants, including polychlorinated biphenyls which are linked to cancer and other health problems. It entered into a series of consent decrees with ...