In the late 1990s, when carpet executives in northwest Georgia learned the chemicals making their products stain-proof built up in human blood indefinitely, they kept using similar versions for years.
And when federal regulators tried to test water for the dangerous chemicals, known as PFAS, the local water utility joined forces with the carpet industry to block them.
And when chemical-laden wastewater sprayed along the banks of the Conasauga River, sending runoff into nearby waterways in violation of federal rules, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division thwarted further oversight.
And even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which claims to be “committed to addressing PFAS to ensure that Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water,” for decades proved to be a slow-motion, often toothless regulator as the crisis over forever chemicals unraveled in the “Carpet Capital of the World” and beyond.
For decades, the people of northwest Georgia were failed by not only chemical makers and the massive carpet industry that polluted their waters but also by the local, state and federal agencies charged with protecting them.
An in-depth investigation into this family of forever chemicals by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS), has for the first time revealed the depth and breadth of that epic failure — telling the whole story about who knew what and, more importantly, who it hurt.
Companies put their industry over the health of their workers and neighbors
To understand the failure is to understand the culpability.
Among the investigation’s findings:
- Two of the world’s largest carpet companies, Shaw and Mohawk, for decades kept using products containing PFAS, which ended up in local waterways, even after scientific studies and regulators warned of their accumulation in human blood and possible health effects, according to court documents.
- The board of the public utility in Dalton, which is obligated to ensure clean drinking water, has long seen carpet executives appointed among its ranks. Records show that in 2004, fueled by the growth of the carpet industry, Dalton Utilities joined the carpet industry in resisting the EPA, essentially blocking the EPA’s attempts to access facilities to test water.
- In 2000, an EPA official sent an email to his colleagues and counterparts in other countries calling the main chemical in Scotchgard “unacceptable technology” and a “toxic chemical,” saying this type of PFAS should be eliminated “to protect human health and the environment from potentially severe long-term consequences.” Still, the EPA would wait nearly a decade to issue the first health advisories on this issue — and even then, they were provisional or nonbinding.
Shaw and Mohawk both say they stopped using PFAS in their U.S. carpet production in 2019. And, they say, blame lies squarely with the chemical makers who claimed their products were safe. They also note that state and federal regulators allowed their use.
Those parties certainly are partners in blame. Yet, it strains credulity to believe Shaw and Mohawk, who relied on the land and labor of northwest Georgia to build their billions, didn’t put a prized industry over the health of their workers and the surrounding community.
The damage — though we may never truly understand the full extent — is done. There are still PFAS in the water, soil and blood of northwest Georgia.
And although the source of failure is clear, how to move forward from this mess is murkier than the polluted waters of the Conasauga. Now is the opportunity for Georgia’s leaders to step up and provide a clear path forward by cleaning up the contamination and protecting communities.
Georgia shouldn’t sit back; Peach State must remedy the problem.
As Faye Jackson, a former carpet industry worker in Calhoun who has PFAS levels in her body higher than the national safety threshold, put it: The carpet companies need “to clean this land up” and “they ought to have to pay for it.”
Right now, paying for it involves years of lawsuits between the local municipalities, the carpet manufacturers and chemical giants, including 3M and DuPont. Even Dalton Utilities, once aligned with the carpet industry, is now pointing fingers back, after facing lawsuits by nearby communities.
It’s an inefficient process that brings little if any justice for people like Jackson who have suffered from illness and loss while living alongside the contaminated waters.
What would make more sense is for the state Office of the Attorney General to hold accountable the PFAS makers, carpet manufacturers and their enablers. It can be done.
More than half of state attorneys general, both Republican and Democratic, have taken legal action against PFAS manufacturers and their users, including neighbors Tennessee and South Carolina. But Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is not among them. Today, Georgia has more than enough reason to join their ranks and demand damages for victims.
As this board has previously noted in its editorial about preserving the Okefenokee Swamp, Gov. Brian Kemp has remained distant from environmental issues, and regulating water contamination has been no different. But as he closes out his second term with a budget surplus expected to exceed $10 billion, this is the time to do right by the people of northwest Georgia and set up a remediation fund to finally start cleaning up the staggering multimillion-dollar mess that’s choked the region.
State lawmakers should propose legislation to establish clear, enforceable statewide PFAS limits for drinking water and industrial discharge. Georgia doesn’t need to wait on the Trump administration’s delayed federal standards or the industry to self-report spills. The state Environmental Protection Division can mandate disclosing the presence of PFAS as part of its permitting process, like Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and two dozen other states. It can also lower the legally permissible amounts of industrial PFAS discharge, among other regulatory improvements.
And lawmakers should block House Bill 211, which aims to shield carpet makers from accountability over PFAS claims and point blame solely to the chemical makers, instead. Any effort to dodge responsibility now is misguided when we know what everyone knew, and for how long.
Georgia’s leaders have plenty of options to do the right thing. Doing nothing shouldn’t be a choice.
After all, what choice did Dolly Baker have when she picked up the phone one day in her Calhoun hair salon and found out from an Emory researcher the PFAS levels in her blood were hundreds of times above the average U.S. resident?
Baker, Jackson and so many others in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina deserve answers and justice. It’s not too late to give that to them.
This editorial was written by AJC Head of Standards and Practices Samira Jafari on behalf of the AJC Editorial Board, which comprises President and Publisher Andrew Morse, Editor-in-Chief Leroy Chapman Jr., Opinion Editor David Plazas and Jafari.
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