Chemical weapons were buried decades ago along the Duck River. Now a company wants to dig a landfill.

Tennesseans throw away more than 2,000 pounds of trash, on average, every year, and the dumping grounds for this waste are shrinking. 

Some companies are trying to make a profit with new facilities.

This is happening in Maury County, a rural community about an hour south of Nashville, where a company has proposed a landfill nearly double the size of Middle Tennessee’s largest pit. 

But this proposed landfill site once housed an infamous chemical corporation: for half a century, Monsanto mined phosphates there to make fertilizers and chemical weapons. It also sits near the Duck River. 

“This isn’t just about a landfill,” said Scott Banbury, of the Sierra Club in Tennessee. 

Local and state government pass new Duck River protections

Last June, Trinity Business Group, a Louisiana-based company, proposed a 1,300-acre waste complex, which would include two landfills – for both household waste and construction debris — a recycling facility, metal salvage, tire shredding, a solar farm and other waste operations. 

Trinity proposed the facility by becoming the owner of an old, six-acre landfill and requesting to expand it to a 384-acre landfill. Last year, Trinity transferred the existing waste permit for a property on Monsanto Road to one of its LLCs, called Remedial Holdings. This same landfill got a Notice of Violation in early 2022 from state regulators for “leaking” leachate, which is the contaminated liquid byproduct of waste facilities. 

The city and county governments brought opposition to this proposal soon after. By the fall, the Maury County Commission had passed new zoning rules restricting industrial activity near the Duck River and the Jackson Law, which gives local governments power in landfill decisions. The planning commission for Maury County then rejected Trinity’s formal application for the landfill earlier this month. 

Courtesy Protect the Duck/Facebook

Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill designating a portion of the Duck River as scenic into law on Friday.

Two weeks ago, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation to designate the Duck River within Maury County as “scenic,” which would prevent any landfill from being built within two miles of the biodiverse river. Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law on Friday. 

“There needs to be at least one piece of Middle Tennessee that’s still wild and beautiful,” said Sam Kennedy, a Maury County farmer who supports the legislation. 

The Duck River ‘ran orange and yellow’ 

Monsanto is best known for Roundup, a popular weed killer that has been the subject of many lawsuits in recent years for its links to cancer. The main ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, which Monsanto created in the 1970s. 

The corporation, founded in 1901, initially created food additives like saccharine and vanillin, later expanding its chemical production to agricultural, pharmaceutical and weapons industries. 

In 1936, Monsanto opened a phosphate mine and processing plant in Columbia in Maury County. Phosphorous is a common component of fertilizers, and this sometimes glowing, flammable element was also used in chemical warfare – bombs, phosgene gases, tracer ammunition and Agent Orange. 

Some chemical waste from this operation ended up in the Duck River, according to anecdotal evidence from locals. 

“It was so polluted that it often ran orange and yellow,” Kennedy said. “So when my dad was growing up, there was hardly any life.” 

There is limited information on Monsanto’s Tennessee property, which was later designated as a Superfund for its high level of pollution. The Tennessee Department of Energy and Conservation is responsible for this Superfund and says the phosphate site has “issues related to contamination by hazardous substances.” 

“All kinds of crap from that just got buried in the ground,” Banbury, of the Sierra Club, said. 

Monsanto closed the plant in 1989, and several companies have bought permits and proposed developments in the decades since. 

Is it safe to dig a landfill on a Superfund site? 

The Environmental Protection Agency does not have electronic records of the Monsanto site available publicly. 

With the site closing in the 1980s, not long after the EPA was created, Banbury says it’s unclear whether this site was monitored closely — and he argues more research is needed before anyone starts digging. 

Trinity has denied that there are safety risks associated with the proposed project. 

“There has been an extensive amount of due diligence performed on this property and there are no safety concerns related to the proposed uses for the property,” Trinity president Sidney “Sid” Brian said in an email. 

This is all happening as trash anxiety increases statewide. The Middle Point Landfill in Murfreesboro accepts trash from about a third of Tennessee counties, and the roughly 200-acre facility may have less than a decade less of operation. Construction landfill space in Middle Tennessee is also rapidly narrowing. 

The state can build more landfills, but a better option, according to Banbury, is changing the way the region deals with waste – with a focus on manufacturer responsibility.