Georgia officials watched, waited as carpet mills polluted water with toxic chemicals
CALHOUN — Growing up in northwest Georgia, Stormy Bost lived her life in the water. During summers she plucked crawdads from the neighborhood creek and played in its cool depths, racing home for dinner to beat the setting sun.
Waiting for her were pitchers of sweet tea, which her family brewed using tap water.
“Your family’s going through a gallon every day or two, and it’s cheap,” Bost said. “But it comes from the faucet.”
As a parent, Bost made sweet tea the same way for her own children — until a few years ago when she learned the local tap water contained toxic chemicals called PFAS.
Bost and her husband are raising two daughters in Calhoun, the same small river town dominated by the region’s multibillion-dollar carpet industry where she was reared. For decades, textile mills relied on PFAS in popular brands like Stainmaster and Scotchgard for stain resistance. Some of the chemicals that didn’t stick on carpets were flushed with the industry’s wastewater into local sewer pipes and, eventually, the region’s rivers.
The same odorless, colorless chemicals in tap water here have accumulated in Bost’s body, blood tests show. Her PFAS levels are higher than national health guidelines consider safe and, at 34, she has been diagnosed with liver and thyroid conditions — the types of ailments that research has linked to PFAS.