Centre in Cherokee County is suing scores of carpet and textile companies, as well as chemical manufacturers, that it says are responsible for polluting the city’s water.

The suit, filed today in Cherokee County Circuit Court, says the companies put harmful chemical compounds into the raw water supply upstream of Centre Water’s intake site “in or near the City of Dalton, Ga.”

The lawsuit is similar to one filed last September in Etowah County Circuit Court, by Gadsden’s Water Works and Sewer Board. It was announced in a news release by Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, of Montgomery, the same firm that filed Gadsden’s lawsuit last year.

That suit was filed in September a week after the Alabama Department of Public Health instructed consumers that exposure to elevated levels of two synthetic compounds, known as PFOS and PFOA, in the water can lead to a number of health problems over time in pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers  and formula-fed infants, among others.

Those man-made chemical compounds are used in making non-stick, stain-resistant and water-proofing coatings on fabric, cookware, firefighting foam and other products. Perfluorochemicals, or PFC, break down slowly in the environment.

Rhon Jones, an attorney with the firm, said the suit “seeks to hold those responsible who have contributed to the PFC contamination of the Centre water source.”

“Safe and clean drinking water is vitally important to Centre,” Jones said. “The EPA has acknowledged that these carpet manufacturers are responsible for PFC concentrations in that area. We believe those PFCs have migrated downstream to contaminate the Centre water supply.

“The polluters must bear the expected multi-million dollar cost cleaning up and removing the PFCs from the water system. Some of the highest PFC test results in North America, if not the world, have been recorded near the discharge sites for these carpet manufacturers.”

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management and ADPH are working with the water works and sewer board to monitor the chemicals in the community’s water system, officials said.