A community in east Alabama is struggling to remove PFAS chemicals from drinking water that comes from a river downstream from Georgia’s carpet industry. Fred Zackery is a radio host and water quality activist in Gadsden, Ala., a city of about 33,000 on the banks of the Coosa River. In 2016, Gadsden’s water board became the first public utility to sue carpet companies across the border in Georgia, alleging that the companies discharged chemicals that contaminated the city’s drinking water. Will McLelland/AL.com –> On Monday afternoons, Fred Zackery pulls a chair up to the microphone at a small AM radio station on the banks of the Coosa River in east Alabama and starts to share what’s on his mind. Usually, that’s water quality. Nearly a decade ago, new information from the Environmental Protection Agency indicated the tap water in Gadsden and six other cities in Alabama contained unsafe levels of PFAS, known as forever chemicals. After that alert from the feds, Zackery told AL.com , “I knew something was wrong with the water.” In 2016, Gadsden’s water board became the first public utility to sue carpet companies operating across the border in Dalton, Georgia , alleging that the com
