Commission Votes Monday on Rezoning Old Monsanto Site, Here Is What Is at Stake

Crosswaters Reserve LLC is seeking to build 1,313 homes, a 36-hole golf course, and a 400-room hotel on land that carried a federal Superfund designation when Monsanto left in 1989.

COLUMBIA, On Monday evening, June 15, the Maury County Commission will convene at the Tom Primm Meeting Room at 6 Courthouse Square and take up one of the most consequential land use decisions in the county's recent history. The item on the agenda is listed as a rezoning request. What it actually is, depending on who you ask, is either the county's best shot at economic revival or the most reckless gamble anyone has proposed with the Duck River since Monsanto Chemical Company itself left town more than three decades ago.

The applicant is Crosswaters Reserve LLC, represented by the engineering firm Barge Design Solutions. The firm is seeking to rezone approximately 1,339 acres at 2200 New Highway 7 in Santa Fe, on the former Monsanto campus. The site sits five miles northwest of downtown Columbia, tucked between the Duck River and Williamsport Highway, on land that most longtime Maury County residents know simply as the old Monsanto property. The proposed development would include 1,313 residential units, 975 single-family homes, 188 townhomes, and 150 multi-family units, along with 150,000 square feet of commercial space, a 36-hole golf course with a 25,000-square-foot clubhouse, and a 400-room hotel. The centerpiece of the entire development plan would be Tailings Pond 15, a 325-acre body of water known locally for years as Monsanto Lake, which the development plans rebrand as a recreational reservoir.

The developer estimates a 20-year economic impact of $5.1 billion, the creation of 1,500 jobs paying a combined $932 million in wages, and tens of millions in development fees and new tax revenue for Maury County. Those are numbers worth taking seriously. But to understand what is being proposed, you have to understand what was here before. Monsanto Chemical Company operated on this site for decades, mining phosphorus, manufacturing fertilizer, and producing chemical warfare agents for the federal government during certain periods. The plant closed in 1989. Generations of Maury County families grew up with stories of what the plant left behind in the river: dead fish floating downstream, livestock that would not drink from the Duck, a waterway so compromised it took decades to recover. When Monsanto left, it left behind a federally designated Superfund site, with unknown quantities of hazardous materials deposited across the property. Land use restrictions remain in effect to this day.

This is the third major attempt to develop the old Monsanto site in recent years, and the community's track record on the previous two is worth noting. In 2022, a Louisiana-based company called Trinity Business Group proposed a large-scale waste processing plant, tire shredding facility, and incinerator on the same property. Maury County residents packed the courthouse in unified opposition. The commission voted 21 to 0 to adopt what became known as the Jackson Law, giving local government authority to block such facilities. Trinity's subsidiary Remedial Holdings subsequently sued the Marshall and Maury Municipal Solid Waste Planning Region Board, arguing its landfill application was rejected without proper deliberation. Both parties presented final arguments to Davidson County Chancellor I'Ashea L. Myles in Nashville in February 2026. That ruling is still pending, and that litigation remains unresolved as the commission prepares to vote on Crosswaters Monday night. It is also worth noting that the same engineering firm now designing Crosswaters Reserve, Barge Design Solutions, previously sought to put a landfill on the same property. Maury County rejected that application as well.

The Duck River is not a backdrop in this story, it is the story. One of the most biodiverse rivers in North America, home to roughly 50 native mussel species, the Duck runs through the heart of this county. What happens on land that borders it, land with a Superfund history and active legal restrictions, is a question that deserves a full public hearing and honest answers from the applicant. The Muletown Journal will be in that room Monday night. A follow-up report will cover what the commission decides and what questions were asked. If you want to be there yourself, the meeting begins at 6 p.m. at 6 Courthouse Square in Columbia.

Maury County Tops Tennessee Unemployment Rankings, But the Number Misses the Bigger Problem

April's 6.1% rate traces directly to the Ultium Cells shutdown in Spring Hill, but the county's structural dependence on a single employer is a question neither party is fully answering.

COLUMBIA, The headline arrived last week and spread fast across social media and local Facebook groups. Maury County, according to new data from the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, recorded the highest unemployment rate in the state for April at 6.1%, up a full percentage point from March. Eighty-nine of Tennessee's 95 counties reported rates below 5% for the same month. Lewis County came in second at 5.8%. Perry County, which historically holds that top position, fell to third at 5.3%.

The cause is not a mystery. In January 2026, the Ultium Cells plant on Donald F. Ephlin Parkway in Spring Hill, a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution, paused battery cell production and laid off 710 workers. The shutdown was part of a broader GM retrenchment triggered in large part by the elimination of the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, which expired in the fall of 2025. An economics professor at Middle Tennessee State University noted at the time that the tax credit had created a rush of manufacturers to build domestic production capacity. When the incentive disappeared, EV demand softened and production schedules collapsed. Spring Hill felt it immediately.

The better news is that Spring Hill's story did not follow the trajectory of GM facilities in Ohio and Michigan. In March 2026, GM and LG announced a $70 million retooling of the Spring Hill facility to produce lithium-iron phosphate batteries for stationary energy storage systems rather than EV cells, and recalled all 700 laid-off workers to begin the new production line in the second quarter of 2026. The Ohio plant, by contrast, has pushed its return date to August and counting. The April unemployment figure, then, is a snapshot of the gap between those two chapters, the layoffs and the recall. County Mayor Sheila Butt called the number temporary, and she is not wrong about that. The county's Bureau of Labor Statistics annual rate for 2025 was 3.6%, close to Maury County's historical norm. The monthly figure is also not seasonally adjusted, which causes it to read worse than the annual picture.

But temporary does not mean unimportant. A 2022 Oxford Economics report found that GM's operations in Maury County supported more than 21,000 jobs and contributed a $3.3 billion GDP impact across Tennessee. That is a staggering figure for a county of roughly 118,000 people, and it is precisely the problem. When a single company's retooling schedule can move a county's unemployment rate by a full percentage point in a single month, that is not a weather event. It is a structural condition, and it is not new. Maury County appeared at or near the top of Tennessee's unemployment rankings in December 2025 as well. County mayor candidate Gabe Howard framed it plainly: when one employer can move a countywide unemployment rate that dramatically, the county needs a broader and stronger economic strategy. Mayor Butt pointed to a renegotiated agreement with GM in 2023 that she says holds the company to greater accountability and brings more revenue to the county, along with broader efforts to attract higher-paying employers and grow median household income. Both things can be true at the same time. The April number is temporary. The underlying vulnerability is not.

Federal Indictment Exposes Maury County Man's Alleged Ties to Violent Online Extremist Network

Zachary Sweeney, 30, of Columbia faces multiple counts of child sexual exploitation, with court documents linking him to groups that target minors through online platforms.

COLUMBIA, A Maury County man charged with child sexual exploitation allegedly has ties to dangerous online extremist networks, according to a recently unsealed federal indictment. On May 28, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Zachary Sweeney, 30, of Columbia had been indicted on multiple counts of child sexual exploitation. Court documents also connect him to Nihilistic Violent Extremist groups similar to the network known as "764."

According to the DOJ, Sweeney is alleged to have groomed and coerced minors into producing child sexual abuse material, distributed and in some cases sold that material, and traveled to meet with minor victims, during which time he is alleged to have drugged, sexually assaulted, and filmed victims. The FBI's investigation revealed multiple allegations of victimization of juveniles spanning at least 2022 through 2025. Authorities say Sweeney also committed acts consistent with the 764 network's demands, which include coercing minors to self-harm, sending drugs to victims, and making threats of swatting and doxxing. One victim reported participating in group video calls in which she was encouraged to harm herself while livestreaming.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Tammi Laskowski, speaking generally about how these networks operate rather than on this specific case, told WKRN News 2 that predators in these groups target children in online spaces designed to be friendly and familiar to young people. "They'll befriend children and other vulnerable individuals in online-friendly spaces for children, in chat rooms, online platforms, and things like that. They pose as a friend, they play games with them, and then they move towards what we call grooming," Laskowski explained. She added that predators sometimes coerce children into cutting words or phrases into their own skin and sharing the images, a practice agents refer to as "fan signs."

Laskowski urged parents and guardians to monitor children's online activity and watch for warning signs including sudden mood changes, social isolation, and signs of self-harm. "If you have a child in your life, please be aware of what they are doing online; the amount of time they're spending online; what chat rooms and platforms they're on; who they are talking to," she said. Federal prosecutors are continuing to pursue the case against Sweeney. Parents across Maury County would do well to take that warning seriously. These networks do not announce themselves, and they do not limit themselves to any one community.

43 New Nurses Pinned at Columbia State, and They Are Ready to Work

Columbia State's spring 2026 nursing graduates posted a 94.8% first-attempt NCLEX pass rate in 2025, well above the national average, with a 99% in-field placement rate.

COLUMBIA, Columbia State Community College honored 43 nursing graduates in a pinning ceremony held in the Webster Athletic Center, capping four semesters of classroom instruction and 540 clinical hours for each student who crossed the floor. The pinning ceremony is one of the oldest traditions in nursing education, a moment when faculty formally welcome new graduates into the profession, not just as credentialed technicians, but as caregivers entering a calling.

"The pinning ceremony is a time-honored tradition which allows faculty to welcome our graduates into the profession of nursing," said Dr. Loretta Bond, Columbia State nursing program director. "The evening was a memorable event for all who attended." Dr. Kae Fleming, dean of the Health Sciences Division, added that what these graduates carry into the field goes beyond clinical knowledge. "Nursing school is about much more than mastery of facts and successful checkoffs," Fleming said. "These graduates are equipped with the ability to learn continuously, a priceless skill for RNs and patients and families."

The numbers behind the program are worth noting. Columbia State nursing graduates posted a 94.8% first-attempt pass rate on the National Council Licensure Examination in 2025, compared to a national average of 87.5% for associate degree nursing graduates in the same year. In 2023, the program's in-field placement rate within six to 12 months of completion was 99%. Those are not soft statistics. They reflect a program that is producing nurses who are genuinely ready to practice and who are finding work when they graduate. Maury County graduates in the spring 2026 class included Aletha Parton, Jayleah Burchell, Katherine McCraw, Alisha Jones, Kyla Polk, Kayle Hie, Jebediah Roberts, Arielle Mayes, Sarah Anye, McKinley Woodard, Timory Shaner, and Sariah Sanchez.

The graduates will now sit for the NCLEX exam to earn licensure as registered nurses. They will go to work in hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, schools, and home health settings, in Maury County and across Middle Tennessee. Maury Regional Medical Center, which serves as one of the region's anchor institutions, depends on a steady pipeline of trained nurses. So do the smaller clinics, the home health agencies, and the rural practices that keep care accessible across the county. Columbia State, sitting right there on Hampshire Pike, is doing the unglamorous and essential work of building that pipeline one cohort at a time. These 43 graduates are proof it is working.

Columbia Has a Baseball Team Again, and Dave Hall Field Is Worth Your Summer Evening

The Columbia Jumpin' Jacks opened their first season with a 7-6 win on June 4, playing wood-bat collegiate summer ball through the end of July.

COLUMBIA, There is a baseball team playing at Dave Hall Field this summer. College players, wood bats, evening light settling over the Columbia State campus, and tickets that cost less than a pizza. The Columbia Jumpin' Jacks are in their first season as a member of the Volunteer State League, and if you have not been out to see them yet, you are missing something that does not come around every year in a town this size.

The Volunteer State League is a collegiate summer wood bat league that places college players in communities across Tennessee while they develop their game between university seasons. The format has a long tradition in American baseball, giving young men competitive at-bats against their peers while embedding them in a community that agrees to root for them. The Jacks opened their season on June 4 with a 7-6 win. Home games run through the end of July, with tickets priced between five and twelve dollars. You can bring a blanket and a child and not spend much more than that for an evening outside.

The league's CEO, Alec Allred, said the Volunteer State League looks for "communities that value baseball, support local events, and take pride in their hometown identity." Columbia fit that description. It usually does. Dave Hall Field has seen plenty of baseball over the years, and it has the kind of bones that reward a summer night, grass, open sky, and enough space for the game to breathe the way it is supposed to. The players on that field are far from home, competing for the love of it, hoping scouts are watching and that the crowd in the bleachers makes noise when something good happens.

Maury County has a heritage worth celebrating in places like this, in the small moments of a Tuesday evening game when a young pitcher finds his fastball and the stands go quiet for a second before they cheer. The Duck River runs nearby. Hampshire Pike leads out to the countryside. And right now, on summer nights through July, Dave Hall Field has a team again. That is something worth showing up for. The full schedule and tickets are available at columbiajumpinjacks.com.

Highland Realm Farm Opens Gates Saturday for 8th Annual Blueberry Festival

A conservation-protected 153-acre farm on Hampshire Pike invites Maury County families for an afternoon of music, berry picking, food trucks, and creek wading this Saturday.

HAMPSHIRE, This Saturday, Highland Realm Farm hosts its eighth annual Blueberry Festival, a summer tradition out on Hampshire Pike in the rolling country southwest of Columbia. The 153-acre farm has been in continuous agricultural use since the early 1800s, when it was owned by the McClanahan family. The current owner, Dr. Deanna Naddy, purchased it in 1974 and in 2011 placed it under a conservation easement with the Tennessee Land Trust, protecting it permanently from development. That kind of stewardship is harder and harder to find as pressure on Middle Tennessee farmland grows by the year.

The blueberries are pick-your-own through June and July, and the festival each summer is the farm's way of opening the gates and letting the community in. This year's event includes live music from 422 West, pick-your-own blueberries, a blueberry baking competition, a lemonade stand, food trucks, local vendors, horseback riding, creek wading, face painting, a kids' zone, and a giant inflatable water slide. Admission is $5. It starts at 3 in the afternoon and runs until 8 in the evening.

Hampshire Pike is one of those roads that still looks like Maury County looked before the growth wave arrived, fields on both sides, treelines in the distance, the kind of landscape that makes you slow down a little without anyone asking you to. A festival on a farm like this one is not just an afternoon outing. It is a reminder of what the county is trying to preserve when it argues about conservation easements and agricultural zoning and the pressure from new development. Bring shoes for the farm, towels for the creek, and a little room for something sweet.

Highland Realm Farm is located at 4443 Hampshire Pike, Hampshire, TN 38461. The festival runs Saturday, June 13, from 3 to 8 p.m. Admission is $5. More details are available at visitcolumbiatn.com.

The Workbench: Southern Ridge Farm and The Ridge Butcher Shop

The Cannon family's multi-generational operation brings pasture-raised beef and pork to Maury County through a butcher shop built on faith, transparency, and old-fashioned stewardship.

COLUMBIA, The smell hits you first when you walk into The Ridge butcher shop. That clean, cold scent of a properly run meat counter, mingling with the faint sweetness of hickory smoke. Behind the glass case, cuts of beef and pork are arranged with the kind of care that only comes from people who raised the animals themselves, who know every pasture and feed ration that went into what is now wrapped in butcher paper and ready for your Sunday table. This is the retail face of Southern Ridge Farm, a multi-generational operation where the Cannon family has been working the land and living out their faith in Maury County, proving that Christian values and quality agriculture are not relics of the past. They are a blueprint for the future.

Southern Ridge Farm represents something increasingly rare in American agriculture: a family business where grandparents, parents, and children work side by side, each generation teaching the next not just how to raise livestock and tend the land, but why it matters. The farm operates on principles that predate industrial agriculture, rotational grazing, careful animal husbandry, and the conviction that stewardship of God's creation means doing things right even when shortcuts are available. When the family opened The Ridge, it was a natural extension of that mission: to provide Maury County families with meat they could trust, processed with transparency and sold by people who will answer any question about where it came from. That kind of traceability used to be normal. Now it is something families actively seek out.

What sets Southern Ridge apart is not only their pasture-raised beef and pork, though locals will tell you the difference in flavor is unmistakable. It is the way they have woven themselves into the fabric of this community, treating every transaction as an opportunity to love their neighbor in the most practical way possible: by providing wholesome food and honest service. The Ridge offers custom butchering, a variety of cuts that rival any specialty grocer in Nashville, and the kind of personal attention where staff remember your family's preferences. Whether you are picking up ground beef for a weeknight meal or a special roast for a family gathering, you are part of a community that believes in supporting those who work the land with integrity.

In a county where farming heritage runs deep but family farms grow scarcer each year, Southern Ridge Farm and The Ridge butcher shop stand as a testament to what happens when faith meets hard work and honest commerce. The Cannons are not just selling meat. They are preserving a way of life, one where knowing your farmer is not a luxury but a return to common sense, and where the commandment to love your neighbor starts with feeding them well. For Maury County residents who want to know their food came from good soil and good people, Southern Ridge Farm is proof that the best things are still grown close to home.

Maury County Fire Crews Train in North Carolina on Heavy Vehicle Rescue

Members of the Maury County Fire Department recently completed specialized training in heavy vehicle stabilization and rescue techniques.

COLUMBIA, Members of the Maury County Fire Department recently traveled to North Carolina for a heavy vehicle stabilization and rescue class, sharpening skills that are critical when large commercial vehicles, farm equipment, or multi-vehicle accidents create complex rescue scenarios. The training focused on assessing heavy loads and applying proper stabilization and lifting techniques based on those calculations, the kind of specialized knowledge that can mean the difference between a successful extrication and a secondary collapse.

Heavy vehicle rescue is among the most technically demanding disciplines in the fire service. When a fully loaded tractor-trailer goes over on I-65 or a piece of farm machinery pins someone on a rural Maury County road, the responders who arrive first need to know exactly how to read the weight distribution and establish a stable work environment before anyone reaches into a compromised space. That training does not happen on the job. It requires dedicated coursework, proper equipment, and instructors who have seen these situations before.

The department expressed appreciation to the Gary Simpson family for support related to the training opportunity, according to the department's Facebook post. Maury County's first responders serve a county that spans nearly 614 square miles, including rural stretches of highway and farm roads where heavy vehicle accidents are a genuine and recurring hazard. Keeping those crews current on the latest rescue techniques is not optional, it is what the people of this county deserve from their fire department.

The Maury County Fire Department operates out of stations across the county and responds to structure fires, vehicle accidents, medical emergencies, and technical rescue calls. Investing in specialized training like this heavy vehicle course keeps the department ready for the calls that do not follow a script. Maury County residents can be proud of the men and women who show up to those scenes, and of a department that takes preparation seriously enough to travel for it.