GM Lockport

About the Program
The General Motors Company Lockport site is a manufacturing facility located in Niagara County, western New York. The site comprises approximately 350 acres near the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. In addition to buildings, parking lots, roads and lawn, the property includes forest, old fields, a wet meadow and a pollinator garden. The GM Lockport Team works to increase the quantity of suitable pollinator habitat and promote awareness about pollinators among employees and members of the community.

Practices and Impacts

• In 2016, the team, along with representatives from the Seneca Park Zoo Society, expanded the existing pollinator garden habitat. Due to the thin soil and exposed bedrock, the garden includes seven raised beds constructed of repurposed shipping containers to provide a deeper growing medium for deep-rooted native wildflowers and grasses. Based on monitoring of plant survival and pollinator use in previous years, for the garden expansion, the team chose to plant only native species that included large numbers of butterfly-friendly plants. Two wooden bee boxes provide nesting space for solitary bees.
• The team regularly monitors the pollinator garden bees and other invertebrates. Large numbers of bees make use of the habitat when plants are in bloom between June and October. The pollinator garden also serves as a focal point for pollinator awareness with employees and with the local community during events such as Buy America Day.
• The pollinator garden connects to the Butterfly Beltway, a collection of pollinator gardens and right-of-way plantings coordinated by the Seneca Park Zoo Society across nine counties in western New York.