The Georgia Association of Manufacturers is asking the Georgia General Assembly to give them a “get out of jail free” card over the dumping of harmful chemicals into waterways.
House Bill 211, a bill that appears to be written by the lobbyists themselves, shields manufacturers of carpets, upholstery and fabrics from dumping wastewater contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) into streams and rivers.
PFAS are a newly discovered set of so-called “”forever” chemicals, in that, once these chemicals make it into the human body, they remain there forever, causing cancer and other ailments.
Manufacturers want to hide behind a defense that, until recently, no one knew the extent of damage that PFACs could cause and that the wastewater discharged was not considered contaminated when it was dumped. If that assertion is true, then why do the companies continue to release discharge they claim contain “minimal” levels of dangerous chemicals.
However, these assertions are not true. There are stacks of academic research going back decades that show that some of the modern chemicals used as fire-retardants are as dangerous to humans as asbestos if consumed, even in microscopic amounts.
In fact, the companies that make the actual chemicals, Dow and 3M, have already faced lawsuits over willful contamination of PFAS, so precedence is already present in the court system.
Large industrial companies have too many times been given a pass when it has been determined that their factory discharges contain high amounts of pollutants.
“We weren’t aware” should not be an excuse or defense anymore than it was for the companies that knowingly dumped mercury into the Savannah River for decades, contaminating the fish and any organisms that consumed them. It took action in the courts to finally get them to stop the practice.
Currently, it doesn’t appear that House Bill 211 made it through Crossover day at the Capital, but that does not mean the bill has been defeated. It simply joins the ever-growing list of pending legislation that needs to be watched carefully, lest it gets passed next year with no one the wiser.
