The beeping and screeching of railroad equipment served as an involuntary wake-up call for Newberry residents along Newberry Lane as Track Line LLC employees started the unpermitted gathering and grinding of railroad ties in January.
One family around 200 feet from the edge of Track Line’s half-mile long setup along the tracks said the loud noise of metal machines moving back and forth disrupted their sleeping baby when it started at 6 or 7 a.m. until it ceased around 4 p.m.
On April 11, the city placed a stop work order on the 17.5-acre lot operation because the company missed a deadline to submit a site development plan for proper permitting. Although the company had no permits from the city, county or state, and in spite of the work order, the grinding and stockpiling of ties did not stop immediately.
On May 13, the Newberry City Commission in a quasi-judicial special board of adjustment meeting unanimously denied Track Line’s appeal of the stop work order.
At the meeting, the commission heard from constituents and examined evidence from staff that Track Line started working without applying for any required permits from the state or city.
Last week, Track Line decided to move forward with the site plan application in spite of the estimated 90-day wait to accompany the process. But whether Track Line aligns operationally, environmentally or ethically with Newberry’s values remains an open question for some residents.
“I don’t think you’re a good fit here in the city of Newberry, I really don’t,” Commissioner Rick Coleman told Track Line founder and owner David Malay during the meeting on May 13. “If you’re not getting a permit now, what’s the next thing going to be?”
Mike Troiano, a business owner near Track Line’s facility, said he’s all for new businesses coming to town. But just like how he had to go through a year of permitting to get a shed properly installed on his land, he said everyone else should have to comply with the rules, too.
“The railroad ties out there are brand new. There’s creosote. There’s water that’s all contaminated,” he said. “This has got to stop immediately…it’s not fair to have health concerns.”
Track Line in Newberry
Based in Southlake, Texas, Track Line is not operating anywhere else in Florida. The strategic railway and trucking solutions company was founded in 2020 and grinds railroad ties from across the country into alternative fuel for various construction companies like Argos USA and Quikrete, who operate their cement kilns using alternative fuel from Track Line.
Track Line’s Malay, a former railroad official, said Newberry’s proximity to cement kilns near limestone mines and railroads for transporting products, made it the right spot.
The city first held a pre-application meeting with Track Line in October 2024 to outline the steps of what the business needed to do in order to comply with operation and permit standards.
That same month, Freight Waves reported that five other companies for which Malay serves as owner, general partner, manager or board of directors of, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The companies—Sunset Express Inc., Mobile Fleet Marketing Inc., Glidewell Leasing Co. LP, Glidewell LLC and Sun-Tech Leasing of Texas LP—claimed in bankruptcy petitions they were “unable to continue without debt relief.”
But according to a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by Porter Capital finance company, the entities owe more than $5 million to Porter Capital for allegedly defaulting on a funding agreement.
The bankruptcy petitions also show the companies associated with Malay carried outstanding debts to various Texas counties, including $9,000 to tax collector and appraiser offices, $113,460 for unpaid ad valorem taxes and $26,400 in unpaid business property taxes.
Malay and his wife paid the bankruptcy attorney fees.
In an interview with Mainstreet, Malay said the lawsuit had nothing to do with Track Line and was just people looking to come after the widow of his former business partner.
As communications between Track Line and Newberry continued into December, the city’s director of community development, Stacey Hectus, said they were aware that the company was in the process of purchasing a piece of property which, as an industrial development in the city, required the business to apply for a site and development plan.
Wanting to construct a temporary structure, Track Line applied for a building permit in February. But the city notified the company again that it still needed a site and development plan in order to move forward.
The city held another pre-application meeting that month with Track Line and JBPro staff, who had been commissioned to design the plan.
Track Line’s Trent Marshall said in the February meeting that the company had already been stockpiling and grinding railroad ties without a permit, which Malay also confirmed in May. Malay said he’d worked with the state of Florida and Alachua County within the last few weeks on permitting, but that Track Line hadn’t received permits from either.
Malay said miscommunication between his team and former City Manager Mike New was to blame for thinking Track Line could operate without permits, which he said New verbally communicated to him they could do.
“[New] said, ‘I’m not going to tell you cease and desist,’” Malay said. “‘You file for that stuff, you get JBPro involved, I’m not going to tell you to cease and desist.’”
Malay also said during the May 13 meeting that he’d asked city staff in February “point blank” what else Track Line needed to do and what applications it needed to submit in order to comply with standard operating procedures.
He said early on he submitted his presentation about Track Line to the city, but that no one gave him direction.
“But the facts are, we were very clear with what we were doing,” Malay said in an interview. “I sent my presentation in early… It was a bit of a witch hunt.”
City staff disputed that Malay had been told by New to start operating without permits, or that the city hadn’t versed him on the steps he needed to follow to be approved by the city.
During the May 13 hearing, they read an email from Feb. 20 between city staff and New into the record to prove this and offered to read more emails as evidence but didn’t to avoid redundancy.
New wrote in the email to city staff: “I understand from you that we require a site plan, submittal from Track Line and subsequent approval of the same permit installation of an office building on that site. This aligns with the direction that you have provided to Mr. Malay at Track Line in late October, and I subsequently affirmed to him in November.”
The appeal
Hectus said the city allowed the stockpiling and grinding of ties to go on for so long without permits in the interest of trying to be a good neighbor.
She said former Mayor Jordan Marlowe communicated to Track Line in March that the company’s deadline to submit a site plan would be close of business April 11, or else a stop work order would be placed on the property. Track Line missed the deadline by one day.
Jay Brown of JBPro, who submitted the plans, said his company was not aware of a pending stop work order and didn’t think the Saturday submission would make a difference since city offices are closed on Fridays. Otherwise, he said they would’ve turned it in on time.
Brown also said in other projects, such as churches coming to Newberry, temporary things have been allowed on a property like putting up tents and conducting worship while waiting on a site plan. He said Malay hadn’t done anything on his site to violate the rules or to trigger a Suwannee River Water Management District permit.
But Hectus said preparing a site is different from stockpiling and actively using equipment on a property without a permit.
Commissioner Donald Long, who used to serve on Newberry’s planning and zoning board, also clarified that whether a company does good work or has an unblemished site plan doesn’t supersede the fact that Track Line had been operating without permits.
“If the proper process would have [been followed], you would have had the time to wait for [the application] to go through,” Long said. “We want to be as consistent as possible. If it takes 30, 60, or 90 days, unfortunately, that’s what everybody has to go through to get things done.”
On April 15, the city received the appeal notice from Malay, who continued to stockpile and grind railroad ties after the stop work order.
According to Newberry code, a stay is placed on a stop work order when the entity appeals it, allowing them to continue working until the city files for a hearing. Hectus said the city did so immediately and posted notice for the May 13 hearing on April 28.
By this point, Malay said Track Line had roughly $6 million worth of equipment already in Newberry and around $40 million invested with Argos into the feeder system taking in the ties.
He asked for leniency from the commission to expedite Track Line’s application process during the April 14 commission meeting’s public comment, emphasizing the urgency to operate because of a pending $130 million investment backed by Quikrete, a Track Line client, which had just brought an additional concrete kiln into Newberry .
Malay also said between Track Line and another partner they’d bring in around 50 employees to facilitate growth in Newberry’s community over the next three years.
Newberry real estate broker Joy Glanzer said Track Line had been a good corporate neighbor and would bring in a blessing of tax revenue.
She asked the commission to “[bend] more backwards” for Track Line to get across the application finish line “so [Newberry] can go forward.”
But at the May 13 hearing, the commissioners didn’t budge.
“I have a problem with companies that think they can come into the city and begin operation…then use pressure tactics such as warning us of loss of jobs,” Coleman said.
Health and environmental concerns
During May’s quasi-judicial meeting, environmental concerns with Track Line’s operation were deemed part of the application to be discussed at a later time instead of part of the permit and stop work order process. But the concerns have been a factor.
On May 6, Christopher Gilbert, hazardous materials program manager for the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department (EPD), notified the city of Newberry that the EPD had ordered Track Line to cease grinding ties.
In an interview with Mainstreet, Gilbert said he’d been working with state-level agencies to verify the requirements for a railroad tie grinding operation, something he said was new for the county. If Track Line were to burn the ties, he said that would be an additional layer of research and permitting.
Although Track Line is on a parcel of land deemed industrial, Gilbert said there is concern of contamination to citizens and groundwater because it’s closely wrapped with other zonings, such as residential. Both he and the state Department of Environmental Protection had been in contact with surrounding complainants.
Gilbert said railroad ties have a history of carrying chemical preservatives and pesticides, such as creosote, to protect them from rot and insects. Creosote has been used since the 1800s and contains known carcinogens, such as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons used in fuels, dyes and plastics.
Malay told Mainstreet that Track Line is a green company providing a sustainable solution to the environment by creating alternative fuel and keeping waste out of landfills. Although Track Line isn’t a landfill, he said the grinders could also be used after storms to break down other waste.
He said grinding ties is a form of recycling synonymous with using them for landscaping or fence posts, and isn’t harmful because the ties have decayed over decades.
Malay said creating the fuel pellets is necessary since 23 million ties get replaced every year. Without the recycling efforts, those ties would go into landfills.
Like hardwood for a campfire, he said the classification of ties as solid waste and disposal often keeps people from seeing what they could be used for.
Malay also said he’d never heard of any human health issues from the grinding of railroad ties. He said his company had run multiple lab tests and that most states and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Army Corps of Engineers all deemed ties as non-hazardous.
Although the EPA has not banned creosote, the chemical is restricted as a public health hazard to commercial-use only, such as for railroad ties and telephone poles, and exceeds the EPA’s level of concern for cancer risk. Creosote-treated products are generally banned in Florida, and state law bans the release of the chemical into water.
The flammability and high combustability of creosote also makes stockpiled ties a fire hazard.
In response to Newberry residents moving out of their homes because of Track Line’s operation, Malay said the community had lived next to railroad tracks for years and that fear of change, lack of education and animosity can create false narratives about railroad tie grinding health concerns.
“Dust is always a problem for somebody that’s got breathing issues,” he said. “Some people can smell it, it’s got an odor, but it’s nothing that’s a hazard to anyone’s health.”
Gilbert, the county’s EPD hazardous materials program manager, said the lack of permitting since Track Line started operating makes it difficult to really know what effects the past few months could have had on residents and the environment.
“It’s hard to speculate on what was or wasn’t happening during that period of time because there was no eyes on it for any of the county agencies,” he said. “We’re very quickly trying to do some verification, some technical research to come up with a response action based on those findings.”
Applications in process
As of last week, Marlowe, Newberry’s new city manager, said Track Line did still want to move forward with their application after initially telling the board of adjustment the 90-day wait was too long, and he emailed them again to welcome them and lay out the permitting process.
If the application is approved by the planning and zoning board and commission again after 90 days, Marlowe said the permit would allow Track Line to begin constructing facilities and get electric utilities hooked up for inspection by the state and county. It would not allow them to start grinding in the open air again.
As of April 14, Malay said the process is expected to be completed around the first of June. He said he’d talked to county and state departments last week, but Track Line still has no permits from either agency.
Because Track Line is not recognized as a business in Newberry, Marlowe said fining the company for violating a business permit would be difficult to do when there isn’t one.
But if Track Line goes through all the steps required of every other business coming to Newberry and is approved, Marlowe said the city would welcome them with open arms.
“It’s not possible to say that we will absolutely catch every business that starts operating immediately,” he said. “What won’t happen under my management is that level of confusion. If we find a business that’s operating already without going through the process, we will not let it continue in a state of confusion.”
—With reporting from Seth Johnson
