Erin Brockovich speaks to a crowd at Need to Feed Restaurant in Whitfield County about eternal chemicals.
WHITFIELD COUNTY, Ga. (WDEF) – Efforts to permanently contain a chemical in North Georgia continued Tuesday.
Prominent activist Erin Brockovich held a town hall with Georgia PFAS at Need to Feed Restaurant in Whitfield County.
She says she learns something new and shocking every time she goes to a different city hall in the state.
“(PFAS) is very quiet. It has almost no odor. It has no color. People don’t realize it’s in the water or in the soil,” Brockovich said.
Concerns continue to grow across North Georgia following further test results showing EPA limits on PFAS in water and soil are extinguished.
Georgia PFAS says PFAS is a chemical used by carpet companies that illegally dumped the chemicals into local waterways, leading to numerous lawsuits.
Some of the highest concentrations of Georgia PFAS on record contained more than 2.4 million parts per million of chemicals that can cause a range of health problems, including various cancers and birth defects.
Dr. Bob Bowcock, the group’s water resources manager, said concentrations in several samples tested were too high to measure.
The EPA limit is just 4 parts per trillion, meaning residents in the region are exposed to dangerous amounts of chemicals that cannot be eliminated at rates thousands of times higher than safe legal limits.
One resident, a mother from Somerville in Chattooga County, explained that the city of Somerville gives her 15 gallons of water a month because her water source is contaminated with PFAS, which she said is not enough to avoid using truly contaminated water.
She said she feared the damage had already been done, saying: “Any three-year-old would drink water from a bathtub. That’s what they do. Not to mention, our skin is our largest organ. Why would we put skin in it? It’s not really safe to even wash clothes.”
Brockovich said the findings show that while the Dalton area is the epicenter of the problem due to its carpet manufacturing heritage, the problem is widespread throughout the state.
One woman in Georgia’s Rabun County, in the northeastern corner of the state, said tests there showed the presence of the chemicals due to the presence of a textile mill, and attorney Nick Jackson, who has worked on many cases related to Forever chemicals in Georgia, said he has begun receiving multiple inquiries from South Georgia, most notably on behalf of Dougherty County, home to Albany, Georgia.
“It’s going to affect the entire state of Georgia. You know, it started here in Dalton and we were in Rome this morning. It’s in the landfill. It’s in the rivers. It’s in the soil. It’s on farmland. It’s in the food chain. It’s scary.”
This follows Monday night’s town hall in Dalton, where 14th District Congressional candidates Clay Fuller and Sean Harris showed up to express support for action on this issue.
A major theme at both meetings was encouraging residents to contact their state representatives to oppose pending legislation that could limit the ability of towns and residents to sue carpet companies.
Republican state Sen. Brian Strickland of McDonough, Georgia, said he opposes any bill that would strip cities and residents of the right to sue businesses over this issue. “The state attorney general could sue right now, but passing a bill like that would limit the ability of cities to go out and clean up what happens in their city. I’m against that.”
While more people are becoming aware of the perennial chemical problem with numerous ongoing lawsuits in the state, Brockovich believes this is a bipartisan issue.
PFAS Georgia says it will continue to expand testing, saying it will take years to fully gauge the scale of North Georgia’s perennial chemical crisis.
Brockovich said, “This is our environment, our water, our land. Whether you’re on the right or the left, this can affect your children. This can affect you. This can affect your grandchildren. This is your legacy.”
