AP answers your questions on the news, from GM paying back loans to the fate of used sandbags

Ask AP: GM loans, what happens to sandbags

You see them piled up around homes, businesses, entire towns when a nearby river is rising, threatening a catastrophic flood. But what happens to all those sandbags after the floodwaters recede?

That’s one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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I have seen television commercials for GM saying that they paid back their government handout “with interest” and “five years earlier” than planned. I’d like to know: How did they do it? Where did they get the money? And did they really pack back exactly the amount that they received plus interest, or are they putting a positive spin on the numbers?

Daryle Urban

Ozawkie, Kan.

General Motors Co. repaid loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments worth $8.1 billion five years ahead of schedule, with interest.

But the company doesn’t note in its TV commercials that the majority of the taxpayer investment in GM rests in the U.S. government’s 61 percent ownership of the automaker. GM has said it hopes to conduct a public stock offering later this year or in 2011 to allow U.S. taxpayers to begin recouping their $52 billion investment.

GM paid off its loan from a $16.4 billion escrow fund created by the U.S. government as part of the auto company’s bankruptcy last year. The fund was developed to give GM some cushion in case the economy tumbled but required the company to seek permission from the U.S. Treasury before spending it.

By paying off the loans early, GM is essentially saying that it does not need the government cushion and is beginning to make money on its revamped lineup of midsize passenger cars and crossover vehicles. The loan repayment signifies that the company is no longer on life support and is slowly making progress toward its goal of returning to profitability.

Hundreds of sandbags are used to keep back floodwaters during the spring floods. What happens to the sandbags when the flood is over?

Dolores Baker

Fredonia, Kan.

Sandbags that come in contact with floodwaters cannot be reused because the waters are contaminated with pesticides, sewage and other toxic pollution.

In Fargo, N.D., where the Red River overflowed its banks in 2009 and threatened to do so again in March, used sandbags are trucked to a site on the outskirts of town and emptied into large piles. The sand can be reused for limited purposes such as providing fill for road and building construction, but not for children’s sand boxes or other household uses where people would be likely to touch it.

Even before this year’s 1.5 million sandbags were dismantled, there were still 70,000 tons of used sand in the Fargo piles.

John Flesher

AP Environmental Writer

Traverse City, Mich.

How are the members of a firing squad chosen for an execution, like the one that’s coming up in Utah?

Lex Marsh

Englewood, Colo.

Members of the five-person execution team in Utah must by law be certified peace officers in the state. Squad members are selected by the executive director of the Utah Department of Corrections in consultation with the county sheriff from the jurisdiction where the crime occurred.

By law, the identities of those selected to serve on the firing squad are kept secret. The executioners are armed with matched .30-caliber rifles, four of which are loaded with a live round. The fifth is loaded with a blank. The rifles are randomly assigned to the executioners so none knows which rifle carries the blank, or carries the burden of knowing his bullet killed the condemned.

The executioners fire from behind a gunport bricked into the cinder block wall of the execution chamber, a 20-by-24-foot room inside the prison. The room was completed in 1998 and was previously used for an execution by lethal injection.

Prior to the execution, the condemned will be strapped into a specially designed chair, his head covered with a hood and a white target pinned to his chest over his heart.

The last person to die in Utah by firing squad was John Albert Taylor in 1996.

Jennifer Dobner

Associated Press Writer

Salt Lake City

Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.