Cleanup is almost complete at the former site of an unpermitted railroad tie grinding business in Newberry. The sole Florida location of Texas-based Track Line Rail LLC operated for five months before environmental violations forced it to pause.
Track Line moved into a lot near Northwest 5th Avenue and U.S. Route 41 in January and soon began receiving carts full of used, chemical-coated wooden supports known as ties. It ground the ties into mulch to be sold as a fuel source for neighboring cement kilns.
Residents, some living within 100 feet of the site, reported foul odors and fine dust.
The City of Newberry, Alachua County and Florida Department of Environmental Protection each took action against the company in May after finding it had been operating without proper permits.
With 10,000 ties still stacked on site, Track Line CEO Dave Malay began applying for the required permits later that month and told WUFT and other outlets he intended to continue operations in Newberry.
Two weeks later, Malay alerted FDEP his company would be leaving town.
Malay declined to comment on why the company left and if he intends to pursue operations elsewhere in the state.
Site cleanup happened in two phases.
The first, emergency cleanup, handled the dark mounds of mulch produced by grinding. FDEP deemed the mulch non-hazardous after testing it in May, but considered it “a sudden discharge of potential pollutants that needed to be promptly removed” because of its contact with bare soil.
Track Line hauled seven truckloads of mulch and underlying earth to a landfill in June and replaced it with a fresh layer of sandy soil.
The second phase tackled the ties.
Crews loaded the wooden supports back into the railcars from which they came, clearing 7,000 of them by a July 17 FDEP inspection. The final shipments are expected to rumble away by Aug. 28, according to the agency’s inspection report.
“The Department will need to conduct a final site visit to confirm proper removal of all unprocessed and processed railroad ties,” the report reads. “Additional testing may be required if Department staff observe signs of staining or other potential environmental harm caused by the storage and processing of the railroad ties.”
The company wasn’t required to pay any penalties.
