A publicly traded company’s bid to expand its landfill in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood has suffered another — and perhaps fatal — legal setback.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s decision denying the proposed expansion of the Southern Services Landfill in the Bordeaux neighborhood.
The landfill’s corporate owner is Waste Management Inc., the nation’s No. 1 trash and recycling operator, which runs local operations through its subsidiary, Waste Management of Tennessee. Its 77-acre Nashville location accepts only demolition and construction debris. In seeking to expand the operation by 17 acres, the company said it was unexpectedly reaching capacity after an influx of debris from a 2020 Nashville tornado and the closure of the only other construction waste landfill in 2020.
(READ MORE: Dispute over Murfreesboro’s Middle Point Landfill goes to court)
Neighbors for years have complained of noxious odors and lobbed criticisms of environmental racism in the community northwest of downtown that has been home to generations of Black residents. In 2021, the Davidson County Solid Waste Region Board denied the company’s expansion request for being at odds with a master plan calling for zero waste to be diverted to landfills over the next 30 years — a decision that a Davidson County Chancery Court judge upheld last year.