The lawsuit claims the Irmo plant polluted the Saluda River with toxic chemicals.

The massive manufacturing plant in Irmo is accused of polluting the lower Saluda River and drinking water supplies after dumping toxic chemicals into the scenic waterway and its floodplains for years.

Environmentalists have sued Shaw Industries, arguing that perpetual chemical pollution continues and should be stopped by a federal court. Shaw is a large textile manufacturer that produces fiber and nylon for carpets at a plant on St. Andrews Road.

Congaree Riverkeeper and the Southern Environmental Law Center threatened to sue Shaw in March if he didn’t take action. An attorney said the law center filed the lawsuit because Shaw had failed to stop discharging chemicals from a pipe along the Saluda River, as environmental groups had asked.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday said a river warden found 15 different types of perpetual chemicals flowing from a Shaw discharge pipe in late 2023. They included levels of the two most common perpetual chemicals that exceeded new federal drinking water standards.

That’s important because the Lower Saluda is being polluted upstream of the West Columbia and Cayce drinking water systems, which have shown evidence of chronic chemical contamination in their water, said Carl Brzorad, an attorney with the law center. Fish that people eat are also being polluted downstream of the Shaw Industries plant, he said.

“They are dumping PFAS directly into the drinking water source,” Brzorad said. “These municipalities do not have the advanced treatment system in place that is needed to remove these substances from the water source.”

The source water originates in the lower Saluda, an 11-mile stretch of river that extends from Lake Murray Dam to its mouth on the Broad near downtown Columbia. Together, the two rivers form the Congaree. The cool lower Saluda is often considered the jewel of the three waterways, with whitewater rapids and active trout fishing that is unusual for central South Carolina. It is a state river designated as a Scenic River.

Shaw representatives were not immediately available for comment Tuesday, but said in March that the company stopped using some PFAS agents in its carpet production five years ago. The company has suggested that it is looking for persistent chemicals that may have passed through its facility.

The company said Shaw is taking steps to address “inadvertent sources of PFAS” and address public concerns. A spokeswoman said the company has complied with all wastewater discharge permits.

Shaw Industries has operated the Irmo plant for 19 years, but the manufacturing facility has been in operation since at least the 1960s. Once operated by Honeywell, the St. Andrews Road plant is easily visible to anyone driving through Irmo. Shaw, based in Dalton, Ga., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers. It employs about 20,000 people and has annual sales of $6 billion worldwide.

Shaw’s carpets have shown high levels of PFAS, according to the lawsuit. The company’s plants in Georgia and Alabama have been the target of lawsuits over the problem in those states, the South Carolina lawsuit said.

A lawsuit filed this week by environmental groups could, if successful in court, result in hefty fines from state or federal agencies. But Brzorad said the primary goal is for Shaw to stop the discharges, either through an injunction or a settlement.

“We are in active discussions with Shaw and expect those discussions to continue,” Brzorad said. “We certainly hope they take this as seriously as the threat it poses to the environment.”

West Columbia and Cayce were not involved in the legal proceedings, but the cities could benefit from any action to reduce PFAS emissions into the lower Saluda River. Cayce spokeswoman Ashley Hunter said the city, which heard from the river manager that a lawsuit was pending, wants to protect its drinking water.

“Our city administration was made aware of the general issues regarding the concerns, but was not aware of the specifics of the lawsuit,” Hunter said in the text. “We appreciate the work of Congaree Riverkeeper. Providing our citizens with safe drinking water is of the utmost importance to our city.”

A West Columbia spokeswoman was not initially available for comment.

The lawsuit filed by environmental groups is one of a growing number of lawsuits against producers and users of persistent chemicals across the state and country.

In South Carolina, the main PFAS lawsuits include cases on behalf of firefighters who used foam to put out fires and cities that claim the perpetual chemicals contaminated their water. Attorney General Alan Wilson has two cases of his own, while private law teams interested in filing class-action lawsuits are actively seeking information from people who may have been exposed to perpetual chemicals in their water.

Residents in a rural Darlington County area have filed a lawsuit over drinking water contamination they say was the result of the use of sludge fertilizer from a textile mill.

One of the largest cases in South Carolina is a lawsuit filed by the city of Columbia against more than 40 chemical manufacturers or users.

Like West Columbia and Cayce, Columbia had elevated levels of perennial chemicals in its drinking water, which officials say necessitated expensive water system upgrades. Shaw was among those named in Columbia’s lawsuit last month, which seeks tens of millions of dollars in drinking water upgrade costs.

Forever chemicals, formally known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, can cause cancer and a range of physical ailments in people who drink water or eat food contaminated with the material over time. The chemicals have been used in industry for 80 years, being useful for things like waterproofing clothes and carpets and coating nonstick pans. They are also key ingredients in firefighting foam.

Manufacturers knew about the dangers but kept the threat largely out of the public eye for decades, according to media reports and legal notices. State and federal agencies have learned more about the dangers in the past 20 years, but public awareness has only recently increased. PFAS chemicals are problematic because they don’t break down easily in the environment, hence the name “chemicals for life.”

The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the law center and the advocacy group Riverkeeper said they took the action because neither the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nor state regulators in South Carolina pressed for a stop to the discharges.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, it is illegal to discharge any pollutant without a permit, although there are no specific restrictions on the release of PFAS. Lawsuits like the one filed by the law center are allowed if the government fails to enforce the law.

The allegations contained in the lawsuit include:

• Wastewater discharged through a pipe from the Shaw treatment pond to the ditch is contaminated with PFAS. The ditch transports water from the outlet pipe to the lower Saluda River in Irmo.
• Shaw WWTP unable to effectively remove PFAS prior to discharge
• A number of toxins are leaking through unsealed waste lagoons and into groundwater that flows toward the Saluda River. Unlike lead and arsenic, there is no documentation that PFAS is among the contaminants leaking through lagoons into groundwater. But based on what else has entered the groundwater, “PFAS is likely leaching from unsealed lagoons and basins.”
• Shaw was involved in storing materials containing PFAS on its property.
• The chemicals likely leaked from the plant site following heavy rains and contaminated the lower Saluda River and its tributary, Kinley Creek.

Shaw’s Irmo facility “has discharged and continues to discharge PFAS from Outlet 1 and other sources into the Saluda River,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit claims PFAS may have been responsible for the deaths of an estimated 6.5 million people nationwide. It also said the contamination violates federal clean water and hazardous waste regulations.

Every fish tested in the Congaree, just below where the Saluda joins it, contained the evergreen chemical in 2022, the lawsuit said. The fish included popular sport fish such as largemouth bass and channel catfish, the lawsuit said. Some of the fish had levels that rivaled those found in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River, which carries warnings against eating more than a moderate amount of fish, the lawsuit said.

“The Lower Saluda River is a symbol of the Columbia — a beloved home to wildlife, a recreation destination and a designated scenic state river,” reads a statement from Bill Stangler, Congaree Riverkeeper, whose organization also advocates for water safety on the Saluda and Broad rivers.

“By dumping PFAS into the lower Saluda, Shaw is harming our valuable resources and the source of drinking water for the communities of West Columbia and Cayce.”

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