A small item out of Dunnellon last week speaks volumes about how Florida’s permitting culture turns decisions into stalemates and pushes investment into quicksand.
Track Line Rail LLC says it wants to shred old railroad ties on privately owned land in unincorporated Marion County, near the city of Dunnellon. Because those ties are treated with creosote, a petroleum-based preservative, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has permitting authority. That’s state law. But Dunnellon officials want the project stopped and have now formally urged DEP to deny the permit, citing health and environmental risks.
So far, that sounds like an ordinary disagreement about land use. But look closer and you see the problem we highlight again and again: nobody is actually empowered to bring clarity or finality, and everyone has just enough jurisdiction to say no — but not enough authority to resolve anything.
The site isn’t inside Dunnellon city limits. It’s in the county. Yet the city is intervening because residents are worried. The county hasn’t made a definitive public statement. The company says it’s following DEP’s process. DEP will evaluate environmental factors, but it isn’t in the business of judging economic or community fit. Meanwhile: confusion, delay, anxiety and rumors.
Florida’s regulatory system increasingly functions like this: overlapping entities, unclear triggers, and long silence from the agency that actually carries the stamp of approval. When government actors can jump into a process without clear authority — or when authority exists but timelines don’t — the message to businesses and citizens is the same: get comfortable waiting. And while you do, assume the worst.
None of this is about whether a creosote-related operation is good or bad. Reasonable people can disagree on environmental risk. The question is whether Florida has a permitting framework built for transparency and confidence or one that invites fear, mobilizes opposition before facts are clear, and rewards whoever can shout longest.
Consider the incentives here. The applicant has no guarantee of timeline or decision standard. The city, despite lacking jurisdiction, can effectively stall the process by raising political heat. The county can keep its head down and avoid controversy. DEP, already stretched and slow on industrial reviews, is unlikely to act quickly under pressure.
So what we end up with is not environmental stewardship or economic strategy — but bureaucratic drift that makes everybody feel underserved.
If a project poses legitimate environmental risk, the permitting authority should say so promptly and clearly. If it doesn’t, the applicant shouldn’t be trapped in limbo while local governments without jurisdiction form a de facto veto.
The lesson out of Dunnellon is simple: Florida needs clear decision timelines, transparent standards, and a single point of authority for land-use questions — even when multiple governments have interests. Otherwise, the state’s growth conversation becomes an endless loop of suspicion and stalling.
Nobody benefits from a process that refuses to decide. And the more it happens, the more Florida earns a reputation for uncertainty — the most corrosive form of red tape there is.