The Rome News Tribune reported that multinational Chemical Company DuPont, alongside subsidiaries, agreed to pay $45 million over a five year period to the City of Rome, according to settlement documents released under Georgia’s Open Records Act Friday.
E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Company, the Chemours Company, the Chemours Company FC, LLC, DuPont De Nemours Inc. and Corteva Inc. are all part of the settlement.
The settlement comes after years of chemical pollutants, partially manufactured by DuPont, were dumped into the Oostanaula River by carpet manufacturers and other companies upstream in Dalton.
Rome switched its water system intake to the Etowah River in 2016 after the revelation that harmful chemicals weren’t being dispersed by Dalton’s massive land application system but were being introduced into Rome’s main water source.
The city filed a lawsuit against 30-plus defendants including Shaw Industries, Mohawk, Daikin America, Aladdin Manufacturing Co. and Dalton Utilities. That lawsuit was settled in 2023.
The issue concerns PFAS and PFOAs chemicals used in nonstick and stain blocking materials. Those chemicals are also known as forever chemicals because they don’t break down readily in nature or the human body.
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