, after workers complained about ankle-deep water in the tunnels, muck spills and severe chemical spills. The company was fined $112,000. Boring disputed the allegations and contested the violations. Davis said the company will give away limestone excavated from the tunneling site as a “donation.” One official said this raises an important question: Did the state of Tennessee gift mineral rights to the company? The Boring Company received free land from the state for the tunneling project, and it may have included mineral rights to the limestone, according to state Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville. “There are so many things that are wrong with this,” Clemmons told WPLN News, suggesting that it seems like the state may have approved the project without checking important boxes in writing. To build about 10 miles of parallel tunnels between the airport and downtown, the company will have to excavate a significant amount of limestone, which is considered a valuable resource. Details are unclear on who owns the minerals. Davis implied Monday that The Boring Company does — even suggesting that people interested in the limestone should email the company directly. “Our plan is not to mine and then start selling this material,” Davis said during the town hall. Davis claimed that Nashville’s limestone offers protection against geohazards, but geologists have warned that the city is a “sinkhole hotspot.” Nashville has karst terrain. Most of the city, including the planned tunnel route, sits atop limestone. This underground terrain is full of cracks and holes, which allows water and soil to swiftly move through it, and many areas have thin layers of soil over the bedrock. “The best protection, to be very frank, is the rock itself,” Davis said. Davis suggested that the limestone rock in Nashville is less likely to settle, meaning the ground is less likely to move downwards, than some types of terrain that have sand or heavy soil. That is true, but it misrepresents the city’s sinkhole risk. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey