South Bend Stamping was formed as a subsidiary to a company called Allied Products. Allied Products bought it from the defunct Studebaker plant in 1963. Allied Products was a company that bought old manufacturing plants all over the Midwest and tried to adapt them to different business ventures. Allied sold the SBS site to another company called EWI, who in turn sold it to another company called Tecumseh Metals. All eventually went bankrupt, with Tecumseh filing first and eventually Allied Products filing last in 1999.
The City of South Bend obtained the site through bankruptcy proceedings in 2002 after it had sat vacant since Allied Products bankruptcy in 1999. Other areas of the original Studebaker site remain and are currently occupied by other businesses. These areas will eventually be part of the City of South Bend redevelopment plan.
Emergency funds in the amount of $25,000 were authorized by the Federal On-Scene Coordinator on June 25, 2004 for the Emergency and Rapid Response Services contractor to secure various transformer rooms at the abandoned site. An additional $225,000 was designated on July 9, 2004 for purposes of initiating the emergency action.
The SBS property consists of eight buildings and concrete and asphalt-covered areas. The eight buildings are located under three separate roofs. The buildings were previously used for assembly and painting, pressrooms, steel receiving and storage, machining, die washing, spring shop, truck chassis assembly, tool rooms, maintenance, and heat treating.
Large concrete press pits remain onsite. Three of the pits had previously been steam cleaned. The remaining pits contain a petroleum-based liquid. Tunnels are located under some of the buildings.
During a site assessment performed on June 25, 2004, numerous steel and poly 55-gallon drums were observed onsite. In addition, large mercury switches and friable asbestos are located on site. Twenty transformers labeled as containing PCBs were also observed throughout all buildings onsite. Analytical results confirm the presence of PCBs in the transformer oil.
