BANGOR – An Idaho businessman who was ordered to stop employing foreign workers after 14 of his crewmen drowned last September in the Allagash is a major investor in a new company that wants to bring 340 foreign workers to Maine in the coming weeks.

Now the U.S. Department of Labor wants to investigate the business relationship between Peter Smith III of Sandpoint, Idaho, and Progressive Environmental LLC, a Washington state company.

John Chavez, a Labor Department spokesman based in Boston, said Thursday Smith was notified earlier this year that he couldn’t be involved in any way with the employment of foreign workers.

“At this point, he is prohibited from performing any named farm labor contract activities under the law,” Chavez said. “This will be interesting.”

Smith, who is owner of Evergreen Forestry Services, which employed the 14 men who died Sept. 12, has a 40 percent financial interest in Progressive Environmental of Tum Tum, Wash., according to a document Progressive Environmental filed in March with the Washington Department of Labor and Industries.

Progressive Environmental recently was certified by the Maine Department of Labor to employ 340 foreign workers to thin and plant trees in Maine’s woods this summer, said Vaughn LeBlanc, director of the state Labor Department’s division of migrant and immigrant services, on Thursday.

It is the first time Progressive Environmental has been certified in Maine, said LeBlanc, who noted that he could not investigate the company or its owners because he does not have authority from the federal government to do so.

“By law, I cannot look below the surface,” LeBlanc said. “All I can say is they followed the procedures.”

On Sept. 12, 14 men from Guatemala and Honduras who were hired by Evergreen died when the van they were riding in plunged off John’s Bridge into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. One man survived.

The men were on their way from Caribou to thin trees on land owned by Pingree Associates, more than 21/2 hours away from their apartments. Pingree’s land is managed by Seven Islands Land Co., which had a contract with UAP Timberlands of Old Town to maintain Pingree’s vast holdings. UAP contracted with Evergreen and Smith, who employed the foreign workers.

John Steward of UAP Timberlands said Thursday that he has been talking with Progressive Environmental about supplying foreign workers to thin or plant trees starting in mid-June on properties owned by several different landowners.

“Our main concern is making sure the company we’re doing business with has all the required documentation with the Department of Labor,” Steward said.

In late December, Evergreen Forestry Services and Smith were notified by the federal Labor Department that their farm labor contractor license was being revoked because of violations of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. The Labor Department assessed civil penalties against Evergreen totaling $17,000, the maximum amount the department could assess under the law.

The department also charged Evergreen and Smith with “failing to provide workers with safe transportation, failing to properly register the driver of the van involved in the accident, transporting workers without a certificate of authorization and failing to amend their certificate to include the van involved in the accident.”

Chavez said Evergreen and Smith filed an appeal, but it recently was dismissed by his agency because Evergreen did not renew its contractor license. Chavez said Evergreen could have renewed the license to keep it current while the appeal process was under way even though the company would not have been allowed to use it to hire foreign workers.

“Not only have we revoked his certificates, but they’ve expired,” Chavez said.

Smith, contacted Thursday at his Idaho home, said he received a letter from the federal Labor Department “a couple of weeks ago” that stated that they were dropping efforts to revoke his farm labor contractor licenses, but were continuing to pursue charges involving the driver and the van. He said he was waiting to be notified on a hearing date with the federal Labor Department so he could air his side.

“Hopefully we’ll get this resolved pretty soon,” Smith said, “if I get a hearing.”

When asked by the Bangor Daily News if he would fax a copy of the letter, he said he would have to ask his attorney in Maine if it was all right to do so. Then, Smith said, he could not disclose the attorney’s name because “he has not been retained yet.”

Attorney Andrew Ketterer, a former state attorney general, said he currently is Smith’s spokesman but that Smith is handling the appeal with the federal Labor Department.

Evergreen has run afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act on dozens of occasions dating to 1984 in several states, according to Labor Department inspectors’ reports.

Smith confirmed his partnership with Progressive Environmental and added that he was an investor in the company and not a manager. He said the business arrangement was formed in late 2001, “way before the accident.” Progressive Environmental’s other owners are Randy Humbert of Tum Tum and Bruce Campbell of Post Falls, Idaho. Neither Humbert nor Campbell could be contacted for comment Thursday.

Smith said he was not operating Evergreen Forestry Services this year because of the emotional toll the deaths have had on him.

“I’m taking a year off work to get through the grieving part, and to get through this appeal,” Smith said. “I don’t want this kind of pain again.”