Almost one year ago, in October of 2023, Collier Materials, Inc. unexpectedly dropped its applications for a controversial dredging operation on Lake LBJ and the aggregate company’s name slipped from the headlines. The Marble Falls-based company again is in the news after recently filing a lawsuit in a Llano County district court. Collier Materials is alleging that the owners of two tracts of ranchland—where it intended to place its wash plants for the tons of sand and gravel it planned to scoop out of the lake—were fraudulent in their dealings with the company.
Collier Materials filed its initial complaint on Aug. 28, against four defendants: Spinner Beheim, LLC; Kingsland Ranch Limited Partnership; and individuals Marsha Spinner and Beverly Beheim, who are sisters. The complaint alleges two instances of breach of contract and three instances of fraud. Collier is asking the court to award “over $1 million in monetary relief” and for the court to declare the leases on the two tracts to be “a binding and enforceable contract.” Additionally, Collier Materials claims an injury of more than $50 million “in lost profits that it would have otherwise earned in completing the dredging projects...” according to the complaint.
Austin Shell, an attorney with a law firm in Marble Falls who is representing Collier Materials, told the News on Monday that the lawsuit is in progress.
“I know that the defendants have been served (a formal notice of the lawsuit) but we’ve not received an answer yet,” he said. “They have approximately 30 days from the date of being served to file an answer to the lawsuit.”
The News asked Shell if he anticipated that the litigation would be lengthy.
“We hope it’s not, we want a quick resolution to this situation,” he said. “We think we’re correct in our position and we hope the court will expeditiously resolve this. They entered into an agreement with Mr. Collier and accepted tens of thousands of dollars as part of the agreement and now, they’re trying to back out of it.”
Collier’s complaint is 51 pages long, including three exhibits: the initial lease agreement and a lease memorandum that were signed on June 23, 2020, and an addendum to the initial lease that does not have a date or any signatures. The initial lease agreement included Kevin Collier, vice president, representing Collier Materials as the tenant, and Spinner Beheim, LLC, or Spinner and Beheim as the landlords.
The lease allowed Collier to build a sand plant on 50 acres of land on Hardin Ranch near LCRA’s Dredge Zone D, with an initial ten-year term that would have ended in 2031 with options to extend the lease by thirty more years. A second ranch tract known as Kingsland Ranch—located near Dredge Zone C—later was added onto the Hardin Ranch lease agreement and with the same terms, according to the lawsuit complaint.
“...The lease gives Spinner and Beheim a $1/ton royalty or about $1.2 million per year,” the complaint states.
INVESTING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
The lawsuit complaint illuminates the financial investments that Collier Materials was making into its proposed dredging operation before the LCRA had approved its applications and while hundreds of people were lodging formal complaints with the agency.
“At this point, Collier Materials has incurred more than $1 million in out-of-pocket expenses in reliance of the Sand Plant Lease,” the complaint states.
Two of the expenses that Collier claims to have paid to Spinner Beheim, LLC, were an initial lease payment of $25,000, wired on June 26, 2020; and a $200,000, prepayment of royalties on Sept. 10, 2021.
“Also on June 26, 2020, and in reliance on the executed Sand Plant Lease, Collier Materials made a $1,380,373, down payment on a new washing plant for use on Hardin Ranch,” according to the complaint.
Collier also began paying property taxes and permit fees on the two tracts.
“Nearly two years after she signed the Sand Plant Lease, Beheim began to claim that it and the Lease Addendum were invalid,” the complaint states. “More specifically, (she) alleged that she did not remember signing the Sand Plant Lease, and that as such, the (lease) is unenforceable. Collier Materials believes Beheim began claiming it was invalid and unenforceable because she wanted to renegotiate the economic terms of the Sand Plant Lease....and negotiating terms for Kingsland Ranch. Collier Materials has been unable to exercise all of its rights under the Sand Plant Lease, as amended, as a result of Beheim’s complaints. Spinner has also subsequently advised that while she has the authority to grant the leases...that she does not want to upset her sister and family harmony.”
The News checked with the Lower Colorado River Authority on Monday and confirmed that no new applications have been filed under the Highland Lakes Watershed Ordinance (HLWO) or the Highland Lakes Dredge and Fill Ordinance (HLDO).
All four applications were undergoing the LCRA’s technical review process when Collier withdrew the applications on Oct. 20, 2023. Two of the applications were for sand and gravel processing plants that are regulated under the HLWO and two were for proposed Tier III dredging operations under the HLDO.
According to Save Lake LBJ, an organization that formed in opposition to the proposals, 92% of the comments received by LCRA were against the proposed dredging operation and processing plants on the lake.
