After three years of non-payment for property taxes, Missoula County is suing the owners of the former Smurfit-Stone mill in Frenchtown, located just east of Alberton.

The out-of-state corporation, M2GREEN Redevelopment, purchased the property in 2011 with the intention of demolishing it and selling the steel for scrap. When steel prices fell, the company’s efforts stopped. Property taxes from the site go to the Frenchtown School District and the Frenchtown Fire Department.

On July 12 the Missoula County Attorney’s office filed a civil complaint on behalf of the county for a judgment in the amount of $1,203,339. Smurfit-Stone was a paper mill located east of Frenchtown along the Clark Fork River, a waterway that includes the federally designated threatened bull trout. It was used as a paper mill for more than 50 years and used hazardous chemicals including dioxins, furans, arsenic and manganese. The chemicals were deposited in unlined ponds near the river. The 3,200-acre industrial site closed in 2010.

In addition to the civil complaint, the court is asking the county to pay all proceeds from an auction of equipment on the site scheduled for Aug. 10. A motion was filed for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent transfers of real property or other assets by M2GREEN pending the litigation.

The complaint states the M2GREEN Redevelopment is “maintaining community decay, a public nuisance and health code violations by accumulating demolition waste and garbage.”

The site is also in a review and testing phase for being named a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Ponds built at the site were not lined, and monitoring wells show seepage is reaching the river which flows west into Mineral County.

The shallow aquifer has been contaminated with mill effluent, the EPA said, and petroleum hydrocarbons and arsenic are likely present, along with other chemicals once used in the process of bleaching paper.