A trio of lawsuits filed on behalf of Northwest Georgia property owners allege two of the region’s largest employers dumped toxic “forever chemicals” into the environment, posing a hazard to residents and requiring millions of dollars worth of cleanup.
PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, were produced by the companies 3M, DuPont, Chemours and Invista for products like Scotchgard, Stainmaster and Teflon, the lawsuits said. These products were in turn used by flooring-makers Shaw Industries and Mohawk Industries in their manufacturing processes, the complaint said.
Shaw and Mohawk “boil and coat their carpets in the chemical cocktail all while spewing the chemicals in every possible way: emitting the chemicals as vapor into the atmosphere, dumping them as liquids in the sewer, spilling them as liquids onto the ground and releasing them as dust into the air,” the lawsuits said.
(READ MORE: More than half of samples taken in Northwest Georgia exceed EPA limits for PFAS)
“Thanks to Shaw’s and Mohawk’s recklessness, the chemicals pollute everything around their facilities: air, rain and snow, surface water, soil and dust and groundwater,” the complaint said.