DALTON, Ga. — In the 1990s, Erin Brockovich successfully fought Pacific Gas & Electric Company in court over groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California.
It led to a $333 million settlement, new regulations, a movie starring Julia Roberts and a lifetime of environmental activism.
She's heard from concerned citizens around the world — including in Northeast Georgia.
"Anytime there's an environmental issue since the film, people tend to go, 'Well, I'll send Erin Brockovich an email,'" she said. "Anytime I start getting an uptick of emails from a specific location, it generally starts to tell me something's going on."
The messages from Dalton, Georgia and the surrounding community led her to one of the worst concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) she's seen.
"The levels are very high — they're as much as 10,000 times the acceptable standards," water resource manager Bob Bowcock told 11Alive. "There are probably 20 different cancers that are brought on by these compounds."
PFAS are also known as "forever chemicals" because they don't break down in nature. They have been linked to serious health issues, from fertility problems to cancer.
"[The water] is where the minnows you know are picking up the PFAS. They become somebody's food. Their predator becomes somebody else's food, and it goes right up the chain," Bowcock said. "Everybody — literally from the top to the bottom — is impacted at various levels, at various times, pretty much continuously."
Brockovich and the legal team of PFAS Georgia will hold two town hall meetings in the state to educate and to listen.
"The people who are reporting — that are living in a condition, breathing, drinking, know they've been exposed to something — when they start telling you about body rashes or animals dying, a lot of people dismiss that," Brockovich told 11Alive. "I do not because they are telling the truth."
She hopes her town halls can educate and empower the community.
"When you band together, and you are informed, and you stand up together, you're going to make a difference," she said. "This is your land. This is your water. This is your health, and we're going to need to fight for it."
The first town hall will be held on Friday, Sept. 20, at 6 p.m., at The Venue at Cottonwood Farm, 350 Crisp Road, Chatsworth, Georgia.
The second will be held on Saturday, Sept. 21, at 10 a.m. at The Spot 365, 365 South Industrial Blvd, Calhoun, Georgia.
In April 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the first-ever legal limit standards on forever chemicals.
It now requires 262 Georgia public water systems to test for PFAS and report their results by 2025.
Hazardous amounts have been found by at least 22 of those so far. The majority are concentrated in Northwest Georgia.