MAYOR MASIELLO CONTINUES FIGHT FOR CLEAN-UP OF FORMER BUFFALO STEEL PROPERTIES

BUFFALO (11/14/00) - Mayor Anthony M. Masiello today filed legal papers against LTV Steel Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio calling for all actions pertaining to the former steel properties to be heard in court in Buffalo. The former largest tenant of the city, LTV Steel sought the protection of the Bankruptcy Court in New York City to avoid their responsibility to clean-up their lands in Buffalo.

The former LTV Steel Inc. site is located on 218 acres within the city's proposed 1,200 South Buffalo Redevelopment Zone. For two years, the Masiello Administration has attempted to negotiate with the out-of-state steel company in an effort to have their former steel-producing property remediated for future commercial redevelopment.

In March 1999, it came to light that LTV Steel had left industrial waste in one block of a contiguous residential neighborhood in South Buffalo. After LTV refused to clean-up those affected residential properties, the city performed the most urgent work itself. The Mayor then directed the city's Law Department to file claims in federal court in Buffalo to compel them to pay back the city, and remediate all of their former properties. The companies subsequently sought refuge from their responsibilities by reopening a prior bankruptcy action in federal court in New York City.

"LTV Steel came out of bankruptcy in 1993 with the responsibility to clean-up their properties and they have continuously refused to do so," stated Mayor Masiello. "Now they are trying to hide in Bankruptcy Court in New York City again. This second attempt to avoid their duty to this community will not be tolerated and thus I am seeking to have all court actions prosecuted in Buffalo, where they have left contaminated property, which has affected residential properties, as well as our critically important brownfields redevelopment agenda."

The City is continuing to push, with all its means, for the clean-up of all the former steel properties, so that they will benefit and not blight the City of Buffalo.

"The essence of any brownfields program is to seek a positive reuse of fallow lands once containing industrial activity," stated Mayor Masiello. "Since becoming Mayor in 1994, my administration has been committed to that premise and that is what we are doing and will continue to do."

Tomorrow, Mayor Masiello will travel to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to present his brownfields redevelopment strategy at the annual Mayors' Institute on City Design. The Mayor will join mayors from Macon, Georgia; Salt Lake City, Utah; Niagara Falls, New York; Cape Charles, Virginia; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The three-day conference is co-sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Fine Arts, Department of City and Regional Planning.

Mayor Masiello is Vice Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Brownfields Task Force.

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