Sometimes, it takes a nation to cover what’s happening in a single backyard.
The town of Dalton in northwestern Georgia has long hosted many of the country’s carpet mills. What isn’t as widely known is that so-called synthetic “forever chemicals” used to make carpets stain-resistant have spread into local waters and rivers downstream, contaminating drinking water across the region. Investigative reporters from the Atlanta Journal Constitution were eager to show readers how the spreading chemicals might affect their lives but soon realized that many other areas were affected – so much so that editors thought an unlikely team of journalists from different outlets might be required.
“In Alabama, they’re seeing contamination in their drinking water that they’re tracing back to Dalton, more than 100 miles upstream,” says Dylan Jackson, an investigative reporter for the Atlanta media outlet. “And for them the story is different. We have this sort of industry or company town lens we are looking though in Georgia, nobody has a connection to carpet in any significant way in these downstream communities in Alabama.”
Several media outlets tried to put the pieces together. Journalists from the AJC reached out to the Associated Press, which has an initiative that spurs cooperation with local partners. Eventually, the parties joined in a broader effort alongside The Post and Courier in South Carolina, AL.com in Alabama, PBS’ “Frontline” and The Associated Press to examine the problem not only in terms of its effects on local communities but also on the nation.
Such collaborations are “important right now when you see the industry really cutting back on investigative recording. We have to get together and collaborate to do these types of things right now because, you know, we don’t have the type of resources and investigative reporting that we did decades ago,” says Jason Dearen, an investigative reporter for the Associated Press. “That’s something I really love about this whole thing. that I think this story doesn’t necessarily get told in the same way unless we all come together.”
In addition to stories published in the various regional publications “Frontline”: will present a documentary “Contaminated: The Carpet Industry’s Toxic Legacy” on Tuesday that is based in part on the findings from the local journalism outlets. The program will debut on pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App or on PBS stations and on the “Frontline” YouTube channel Tuesday night at 10 p.m. It will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.
The journalists set up a broader database that allowed them to look at others’ reporting, as well as information on lawsuits and other records and findings. “We are sharing intel and documents. We created a big, huge database for everybody to have access to these documents so they could read them, footnote their stories. ‘Frontline’ used this as well,” says Dearen. “There are a lot of different stories going out, but they all kind of work together as one whole, you know? It tells one whole story, almost like a book. It’s like different chapters in a book
The challenge for “Frontline’ was to turn a regional investigation into a tale that would interest viewers no matter where they live, says Jonatha Schienberg, the director and producer of the documentary. “The story that really hasn’t been told in the past is the story of the downstream impacts. We are likely going to see other situations out there because this is such a widely used chemical as well. It’s used in so many consumer products and so many industries – in microwave popcorn and makeup. There are so many. I think we are kind of in the nascent stages of some of this in terms of the story.”
One thing all the reporters wanted was more participation from the carpet companies. No executive from the corporations appears on camera in the “Frontline” documentary and most reports had to rely on prepared statements. But there was hope for more. After all, as the companies explained, they initially thought the chemicals they used were safe. What that reaction leaves out, however, is an explanation of what they’ve done to mitigate the problem since the dangers of “forever chemicals” have become more widely known.
All the journalists involved believe their findings will be compelling enough for audiences beyond their immediate reach. “What’s happening in northwest Georgia is really sort of the front line a dynamic that playing out all over the country. These chemicals are not only everywhere, they are persistent,” says Jackson. “What we’re dealing with in Georgia is something that communities across the country are going to have to deal with, for my generation and for future generations.”
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