Montana Rail Link Triangle Voluntary Cleanup Plan

The City of Missoula Brownfields Program is working with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to delist the Montana Rail Link (MRL) Triangle property at 1930 South Avenue West as a low priority State Superfund site. The MRL Triangle is a 11.4-acre triangular-shaped City-owned property along the Bitterroot railroad corridor in Urban Renewal District III in Ward 4.

The City acquired the property (also known as the Johnson Street Property) from MRL in 2017 at a generously discounted price and quickly completed construction of the southern portion of the property as a city park in 2019 (MRL Park), providing needed green space for the Franklin-to-the-Fort neighborhood.

To cleanup and fully reuse State Superfund sites, DEQ uses the Voluntary Cleanup Redevelopment Act (VCRA) process which permits and encourages voluntary cleanup of facilities. The cleanup and delisting of the property would assure continued use of the southern portion of MRL Triangle as a city park and allow redevelopment of the underutilized northern portion.

Risk evaluations in the City's Voluntary Cleanup Plan (VCP) indicate that the residual contaminants of concern in the soil do not pose an unacceptable risk to human health and the environment based on unrestricted property use for the northern portion (with the exception of one storm drain), and recreational use for the southern portion. The VCP proposes excavation and offsite disposal at a permitted landfill of arsenic-contaminated soils from the base of one storm drain on the northern portion, and placement of institutional controls limiting use of the southern portion to recreational use (prohibits residential use).