Environmental group's suit: Site near Beaman Park is illegal dump for construction debris

About 1,000 feet from the edge of the Beaman Park forest preserve in northwestern Davidson County, mounds of concrete and asphalt rubble line a curve of Old Hickory Boulevard.

For at least the last year, dump trucks have arrived at the private property regularly to deposit piles of demolition material, neighbors say. Every few days, someone would use heavy machinery to push the debris over a ridge into the wooded hollow below.

The site is now embroiled in a lawsuit claiming it functions as an open dump without a proper landfill permit, discharging "contaminated stormwater" into a nearby creek.

The lawsuit, filed Feb. 1 by the environmental group Tennessee Riverkeeper, claims property owner Robert Barnes is paid to dispose of waste from construction sites and other sources while failing to contain muddy runoff and debris. Federal regulations identify excavated material, roadwork material, and waste from construction, demolition and site clearance as typical materials received by construction and demolition landfills, the lawsuit states.

A recent state inspection of the site spurred by Tennessee Riverkeeper's complaints recorded the presence of "unpermitted fill material" and a lack of erosion control, though state documents note there is "no landfill operation at the site."

Barnes did not respond to requests for comment. His son, Adam Barnes, who is listed as an additional contact for the property on state documents, declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday.

Joe Ingle keeps sheep on his property downstream. He said heavy rains loosen some of the "landfill waste," washing it down the hill and ultimately draining into Sulphur Creek. Ingle described the water as "so muddy you could not begin to see through it."

He worries about what his sheep — and the area's wildlife — might be ingesting when they drink from the creek.

"Who wants to have you coming out to Beaman Park, one of the most beautiful parks in the state, and you drive by a landfill, which is almost right next to the park," said Ingle, who sits on the board of Friends of Beaman Park, a volunteer-run fundraising and education organization that supports park activities and preservation.

Tennessee Riverkeeper seeks a court injunction to halt dumping and restore the site to its original condition until Barnes has the permits necessary for a solid waste disposal site. They also seek nearly $65,000 in civil penalties for each day the site remains in violation of environmental protection regulations.

'It has to go somewhere'

Property records show Barnes secured sole ownership of the roughly 34-acre lot in 2019. The land is zoned for rural and agricultural use.

The site's pollutant discharge permit, active since December 2020, allows stormwater discharge associated with construction activity from the 3.42-acre "Barnes Fill Site." Threatened or endangered species are likely present within a 1-mile radius of the fill site, according to the permit, but not downstream.

The lawsuit claims there is no construction happening on the site — just the disposal of construction waste.

Ingle and his neighbor Jim Haney, whose property abuts the Barnes site, are concerned about the debris wreaking havoc on the land and skeptical of regulators' effectiveness.

Less than 5 miles away, a property known to neighbors as "Dirt Mountain" has received hundreds of dump truck loads of construction site fill, creating a 200-foot pile where there once was a tree-dotted knoll. Tennessee Riverkeeper filed a lawsuit against that property's owners in August 2023, similarly asserting the property is an unpermitted construction and demolition landfill.

"Nashville is a booming town, and when you excavate all this stuff, it has to go somewhere," Ingle said. "And guess where they decided to take it? They decided to take it out to our part of the county, which is rural, and dump it."

He said he estimates there are at least five dump sites in the Ashland City-Joelton area.

Haney, who moved to the area around a decade ago, said a car lot and trucking operations have neighbors worried about the future of one of Nashville's most natural areas.

"We're just a little afraid that they're kind of designating us as industrial out here," he said.

Absent fences, missing inspections and prohibited debris

Metro Codes has sent a handful of abatement letters to the property since 2017 for high grass and the accumulation of trash and inoperable vehicles, all of which were marked as resolved, according to Public Information Manager Will Dodd. But one complaint from March 2020 reporting debris and fill being bulldozed and pushed to the lower part of the property was handed off to Metro Water.

State regulators have inspected the site three times since its discharge permits became active in October 2020. In January 2023, the site was recorded as "in compliance" with no evidence of water quality issues.

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"Some machinery on site showed evidence of current excavation work, nothing near the stream," the report notes. "All materials stabilized or placed in a way that erosion is not an ongoing issue."

A year later, a second inspection revealed several violations.

On Dec. 6, the area was littered with waste not allowed under the site's general construction permit: tangles of metal and wiring, bits of plastic, a wrecked vehicle and discarded tire track from heavy equipment, according to the inspection report.

The inspector found that the creek was left unprotected, though it was dry with no debris found in the channel. Fences that were supposed to contain the fill were inexplicably absent, as were the twice-weekly inspection reports required by the site's stormwater pollution prevention plan.

State regulators gave Barnes until Dec. 29 to clear the unpermitted debris, show erosion prevention measures had been installed and produce at least 30 days of the missing inspection reports.

Barnes failed to meet that deadline. State regulators notified Barnes and Tennessee Riverkeeper's attorney in a letter dated Jan. 23 that the Tennessee Division of Water Resources is "planning to pursue formal enforcement" for the violations.

In an email to state officials on Feb. 1, Barnes said metal, wire and a wrecked vehicle at the site had been removed. He wrote that the silt fence required by the pollution prevention plan — which was finalized in October 2020 — would be installed "as soon as the weather permits."

Barnes' email made no mention of the missing inspection records.

"We have not started the fill site yet," Barnes wrote. "We are building a landing to harvest the mature trees."

After the most recent inspection on Jan. 4, state regulators referred the site to Metro's stormwater compliance program for "compliance assistance."

Metro Water Services has visited the site several times in response to complaints, with the latest visit on Jan. 3 prompted by the state's violation report.

"We found the site mainly inactive," Metro Water Services spokesperson Sonia Allman wrote in an email to The Tennessean. "There were signs of previous logging activity such as downed trees and a log splitter, as well as some recent fill activity and heavy equipment (a bull dozier, dump truck, backhoe, etc.) However, no storm water violations were reported."

Tennessee Riverkeeper v. Robert Barnes by USA TODAY Network on Scribd

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Lawsuit: Site by Nashville park is illegal dump for construction waste