On May 31, Green Investment Group, the company that has purchased the former Smurfit-Stone Container site and renamed it the Frenchtown Technology and Industrial Center, announced the sale of an Ohio property after completion of environmental cleanup at the site.

Ray Stillwell, General Manager of M2Green Redevelopment, a subsidiary of Green Investment Group said on Friday that the Ohio property was similar in many ways to the Frenchtown site that is currently being considered as an EPA Superfund site.

"The particular parcel in Ohio included some fairly significant wastewater treatment lagoons that were remediated at a substantial cost prior to the sale,and in accordance with the buyer's requirements," Stillwell said. "It's an example of us not only performing the requirements for environmental remediation, but satisfying the needs of the buyer who is acquiring the property."

Stillwell pointed out that the environment cleanup was totally voluntary, and did not require oversight by the federal government.

"Remediation of the property in Ohio was done totally under the voluntary program of the Ohio state EPA," Stillwell said. "It had no involvement with the federal EPA."

Stillwell hopes the success of the remediation in Ohio will encourage residents of western Montana to let the EPA know they do not favor the listing of the Frenchtown property as a Superfund site.

"We would really like the folks in Missoula to understand that for job creation and economic development to occurr  more quickly and more efficiently, that the voluntary programs under the various states and provinces up in Canada are working very well for us," Stillwell said. "In Ohio we've accomplished that with further action and a letter filed with the Ohio EPA, and in Canada we've accomplished it with creation of hundreds of jobs in each of the sites, particularly in Quebec, where hundreds of jobs were created literally within months after our acquisition of the property."

Ray Stillwell, General Manager of M2Green Redevelopment

 Comments to the EPA must be submitted by July 23, 2013.

More From Newstalk KGVO 1290 AM & 98.3 FM