cleanup · Niagara County
Harrison Radiator Division, GMC
Lockport
Major automotive-component manufacturing property on Upper Mountain Road. DEC's closed remediation record provides a Lockport counterpart to Buffalo's former GM and American Axle complex and preserves the environmental history behind a major regional employer.
The documented story
What happened here?
Harrison Radiator emerged in Lockport during the early automobile era and became part of the group of component manufacturers assembled into General Motors. The plant made radiators and heat-exchange products, tying Lockport directly to the growth of mass automobile production.
The scale and longevity of metalworking, fabrication, testing, coating, degreasing, fuel use, and utility systems created a complex industrial property. The specific 932017 record includes five piles that stored wastewater-treatment sludge and were closed under hazardous-waste requirements.
EPA lists the broader Upper Mountain Road facility as a non-National Priorities List site deferred to the federal hazardous-waste corrective-action program. That status is distinct from separate Harrison-era buildings elsewhere in Lockport and from the Eighteenmile Creek Superfund cleanup.
Chronology in context
Turning points in the public record
Early 1900s
Harrison developed radiator manufacturing in Lockport as the automobile industry expanded.
General Motors era
The operation became a major GM component division and a defining regional employer.
Late twentieth century
DEC approved a plan to remove sludge, residues and contaminated soil from five wastewater-treatment sludge piles and verify the result through sampling.
Remediation
State-supervised work addressed identified industrial impacts and established any required controls.
Present
The closed DEC remediation record remains part of a larger active and former manufacturing landscape on Upper Mountain Road.
News record
Major news events
Coverage selected here marks a turning point in public awareness, policy, enforcement, employment, or cleanup. Links open at the original publisher or archive; WNYAtlas does not reproduce restricted articles or images.
Five wastewater-sludge piles undergo hazardous-waste clean closure
DEC records required removal of sludge, waste residues and contaminated soil from five storage piles at the Upper Mountain Road plant, followed by confirmation sampling rather than reliance on surface appearance.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗Environmental record
Documented impacts
- Historic automotive-component manufacturing involved oils, fuels, solvents, metals, coatings, and industrial wastewater systems.
- The 932017 closure record specifically documents wastewater-treatment sludge storage piles; it should not be generalized into an unsupported contaminant list for every plant parcel.
- Conditions on one cleanup parcel should not be attributed automatically to the entire Harrison/GM property.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- Closure work removed waste, residues and affected soil from the five sludge-pile areas and used confirmation sampling to evaluate clean closure.
- The state closure record and the broader RCRA corrective-action record describe different regulatory scales and should remain distinguishable.
- Any residual contamination, excavation requirements, or continuing controls remain parcel-specific.
Then and now
The site today
Harrison Radiator remains important both as labor and automotive history and as a documented cleanup site. The atlas treats those histories together without implying that the whole Lockport manufacturing district shares identical conditions.
Atlas connections
Connected places
These collections explain documented material, facility, waterway, ownership, or cleanup relationships. Inclusion does not imply that every place shares one contaminant source or plume.
Lockport industrial and disposal history
Automotive manufacturing, battery production, chemical processing, municipal disposal, and canal-side industry created several separately managed cleanup sites around Lockport.
The closed landfill represents the city's long-term disposal and containment history.
Automotive manufacturingHarrison Radiator Division, GMCHarrison Radiator preserves the environmental record of a major regional automotive employer.
Battery manufacturingElectruk BatteryElectruk adds a smaller controlled industrial property with an environmental easement.
Manufactured-gas plantTransit Street Former Manufactured-Gas PlantTransit Street represents the city's earlier gas-manufacturing infrastructure and recurring MGP contaminants.
Creek and sediment corridorEighteen Mile Creek Superfund SiteEighteenmile Creek links multiple Lockport source areas to a much longer sediment-cleanup record.
Ravine landfill and creek cleanupOld Upper Mountain Road LandfillThe former municipal disposal area connects Lockport's waste history with documented Gulf Creek sediment, floodplain and sewer-infrastructure work.
Former quarry landfillVanchlor Company LandfillThe capped Mill Street landfill adds a separately managed chemical-manufacturing waste record within the broader Lockport industrial corridor.
Research status
Open questions
- Verify the founding, acquisition, product, employment, and plant-expansion timeline through GM and Lockport archival sources.
- Obtain the final remedial report and map the exact DEC site boundary within the larger plant.
- Connect worker and product history without making unsupported occupational-health claims.