NEWBERRY – A fine, woody dust floated onto Jeremiah McIntosh’s property near the railroad tracks in Newberry. As a co-owner of a metal fabrication company, he wasn’t too bothered by the industrial byproduct that showed up earlier this year from a new neighbor.
Then the smell hit.
“I don’t really know how to explain it,” McIntosh said. “Maybe like a bit of tar?”
He and others in the city attribute it to creosote: a mixture of around 300 chemicals used in the railroad industry to preserve wooden rail supports known as ties.
Track Line Rail LLC, a Texas-based company that grinds the ties into a mulch used as fuel for cement kilns, moved into land near Northwest 5th Avenue and U.S. Route 41 in January.
It began operating immediately, Newberry staff said, and without city, county or state permits.
Alachua County issued a cease and desist order to Track Line Rail on May 5, and neighbors say the site is quiet for now.
But pending the county’s hazardous materials analysis and outstanding permits, the company’s grinders could start back up. If they do, Track Line would become the first operation of its kind in Florida, making a small North Central Florida town a hub for railway recycling.
How did we get here?
On April 19, a Saturday, Christopher Gilbert’s phone began to ring. Morning wind gusts had blown Track Line’s dust and fumes onto adjacent lots, their intensity exacerbated by 80-degree heat. Multiple landowners complained.
Gilbert, Alachua County’s hazardous materials program manager, drove to Newberry and met with company staff. He was surprised to see a flurry of activity. Workers hauled in ties along the Florida Northern Railroad, offloaded them to an open expanse and ground them outdoors, uncovered.
“We weren't aware that the operation was there,” Gilbert said of the county’s environmental protection department. “It wasn't on anybody's radar.”
After Gilbert’s site visit, Newberry city staff sent the county additional complaints they had received from residents in the preceding months.
Staff began discussions with Dave Malay, Track Line Rail's CEO, in October 2024. They notified Malay that the operation would require a site and development plan, as any industrial activity does, before beginning.
“Absolutely, they told us that,” Malay said, “but they also knew what our operation was. We had their people out there on site moving power lines so we could get to the rail. It was a relationship.”
Track Line began those site preparation activities and rail tie grinding in January, prior to submitting a site and development plan.
“Who with the city staff [...] said go ahead and you can do this without a permit?” asked Newberry City Commissioner Rick Coleman during a May 13 special meeting.
“Mr. Mike New,” Malay responded, referring to the former city manager who resigned at the end of January. Malay claimed New told him verbally that, as long as the company filed for a site plan with a contractor, he wouldn’t pursue a cease and desist.
Staff found no record of New’s statement in writing.
The company continued to operate throughout February, registering with the Florida Division of Corporations on Feb. 14 before meeting with Newberry staff on Feb. 25. In that meeting, staff reminded Track Line it couldn’t operate without a site and development plan and set a deadline of April 11 for compliance.
Track Line and its contractor missed the deadline by one day. Newberry staff issued a stop-work order on April 11.
“When they told us to stop, we stopped,” Malay said. He appealed the order, allowing Track Line to continue transporting and grinding rail ties until a public hearing scheduled for May 13, but the county’s cease and desist forced the operation to pause.
At the May 13 hearing, city commissioners voted unanimously to deny the appeal and uphold the county’s cease and desist.
“I have a problem with companies that think they can come into the city and begin operation, then ignore multiple attempts by staff to correct the issues,” Coleman said to Malay. “I don’t think you’re a good fit here in the City of Newberry.”
Sunset Logistics, Inc., a trucking company Malay acquired in January 2023, filed for bankruptcy and faced a lawsuit from one of its creditors around the same time he began the process to open the Newberry site.
“It has nothing to do with Track Line. It has nothing to do with Newberry. It has nothing to do with any of our operations on the rail side,” Malay said. “We've handled all those things and the bankruptcy trustees are handling the rest.”
Why does this situation matter?
Officials’ and residents’ concerns stem from the safety of the ties themselves.
The Federal Railroad Administration estimates workers replace around 23 million creosote-treated railroad ties in the U.S. each year. Each tie begins with about 20 pounds of creosote, which decreases to around 13 pounds by the end of its 30- to 40-year lifetime.
Once a tie is removed, it’s typically sent to a landfill or a waste-to-energy facility to be burned.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies creosote as a probable human carcinogen but considers creosote-treated railroad ties as a “non-hazardous secondary material” when burned in approved combustion units.
Less is known about whether grinding the ties releases creosote, too. Ongoing studies by the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department aim to answer that question and determine if, by state standards, Track Line handles any hazardous materials.
Malay is confident it doesn’t.
“They’re dry as toast,” he said of the ties’ creosote content by the time they arrive to be processed. There may be a smell, he conceded, “but the railroad runs right through the town of Newberry, and it’s the same smell.”
If the county’s studies determine the ties could be hazardous to humans or the environment, Gilbert explained, it means more permits and careful site containment.
“Even if it’s nonhazardous, dust has to be controlled,” Gilbert said. “It's not supposed to migrate offsite.”
He said grinding operations are typically done in enclosed spaces to stop dust from escaping.
Malay said he plans to set up two 40-foot containers on the site under a dome to capture dust, but can’t do so until he gets city and Suwannee River Water Management District approval. That permit is currently pending.
“Dust is valuable to us. It needs to go in a truck and go to a furnace,” Malay said, noting that his team designed a hood to reduce the dust lost from conveyor belts to hauling trucks.
They didn’t use it when operating prior to the stop work order.
What happens next?
The county’s cease and desist remains in effect until studies are complete and an inspection date is set.
Since the Newberry City Commission denied Malay’s appeal, its stop-work order remains in place, too.
The operation’s environmental resource permit, concerning how it handles runoff, is pending.
For now, a line of rail cars filled with ties sits idle on the tracks, less than a hundred feet away from homes and businesses. The line stretches a quarter of a mile, a quantity Malay said would take a week or two of grinding to process.
They’ve come from throughout the state, a preview of what Malay envisions would be a regional operation.
“It's good for the railroads to do this. It's good for kilns to process this stuff instead of going to the landfill,” Malay said. He sees his grinders as community assets, potentially to process debris after hurricanes.
“We could grind a school bus if we have to,” he joked.
Others, including the metal fabrication manager, McIntosh, aren’t so sure.
“ I had all intentions of being the best neighbor we could,” he said, but the smell makes him worry. “I don’t know what you can do to contain the fumes.”