On April 23, 2025, the federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia approved the first class settlement to provide temporary, clean drinking water for Summerville, Georgia water customers. The case, brought by Plaintiff Earl Parris, Jr. in 2021, on behalf of himself and a proposed class of Summerville water users, has shown that Summerville’s drinking water is contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which have migrated from farm fields into the Raccoon Creek watershed where Summerville draws its drinking water. The levels of two specific PFAS chemicals in the City’s drinking water – PFOA and PFOS – are currently several times higher than the EPA safe drinking water levels. The chemicals were used at the Mount Vernon Mills textile mill in the Town of Trion, Georgia, and discharged to the Trion wastewater treatment plant, which spread the sludge from the wastewater facility onto farm fields in the area.
Under this initial settlement with one of several defendants in the case, a temporary drinking water fund will be created with $1 million provided specifically by Pulcra Chemicals, LLC, so that clean bottled water or under-sink filters can be provided to current Summerville water customers. The Fund will be established in the next two weeks, and the contract for water deliveries and under-sink filters will be coordinated by a Settlement Administrator. Water users will be notified of how to request the bottled water or under-sink filter, which will be free to all eligible users.
Two other class settlements have been preliminarily approved to expand the drinking water fund, with the goal of providing clean drinking water to Summerville water users until the city has constructed a new, permanent drinking water treatment system that will remove PFOA and PFOS. Other settlements, with defendants Huntsman International, LLC, Mount Vernon Mills, Inc., and the Town of Trion, will be considered for final approval by the Court in June.
The City of Summerville has also settled with Pulcra. Proceeds of the City’s settlement with Pulcra will go towards assisting the City with moving forward with engineering design, and ultimately the construction, of permanent improvements to remove PFOA and PFOS and other PFAS chemicals from the City’s drinking water and/or wastewater systems.
Earl Parris, Jr., the plaintiff and class representative, is a former Summerville City Council member, who has been seeking clean water for Summerville since filing the class action lawsuit in 2021. He stated, “we are extremely happy to have accomplished the first step in court today. The people of Summerville should not have to drink water with toxic PFAS, and we will continue fighting until the chemical companies who profited from their use remove them from our drinking water.”
Gary Davis of Davis, Johnston, & Ringger has represented Mr. Parris and the proposed class since the inception of the lawsuit in 2021, and the firm is proud to have achieved this landmark victory for the citizens of Summerville.