move from plain tufted carpet to sculpted carpet. Improved patterning, stain and wear resistance, and colors have made the modern tufted carpet the choice for functional carpet for the vast majority of homes and moved woven carpet to a decorative role. By the 1990s carpet scraps had made up 60% of the area's waste, and a balefill site called the Carpet Landfill was created to accommodate the unique issue. It currently stores over 500,000 tons of baled carpet. From June 2011 to June 2012 as carpet mills that had employed thousands restructured, downsized, cut back productivity and closed, Dalton lost 4,600 jobs—according to the U.S. Labor Department—making it the city with the worst job loss in the United States. The city's unemployment rate has since dipped to as low as 5.5%. Government and politics Election results Environmental problems Dalton's carpet production has taken up to one-third of the Conasauga River summer water flow. The river and city water supply has been contaminated with perfluorinated compounds used to make carpets stain-resistant. Dalton Utilities' has processed wastewater using a land application system, that spread effluent on more than nine thousand forested acres in an area called Looper's Bend. Runoff was found to drip down into the river. Education Public schools The Dalton City School District, which covers the entire city of Dalton, holds pre-school to grade twelve, and consists of six elementary schools, a middle school, a high school, and an alternative school. The district has 366 full-time teachers and over 5,739 students. The Whitfield County School District serves areas outside of the Dalton city limits, even if they have "Dalton, GA" postal addresses. Coahulla Creek High School, Phoenix High School, and Southeast Whitfield High School have Dalton postal addresses but lie outside of the city limits and serve areas not in the city limits. Charter schools Whitfield County Career Academy Alternative schools Fort Hill Complex (Crossroads Academy) Independent schools Christian Heritage School Higher education Infrastructure Air Dalton Municipal Airport, a general aviation airport, lacking scheduled commercial flights, is southeast of the city. International airports are in Chattanooga to the north and Atlanta to the south. Rail The Southern Railway had two Cincinnati to Florida named trains, Ponce de Leon (Cincinnati to Florida via Lexington, Chattanooga and Atlanta) and Royal Palm (Cincinnati to Florida via Lexington, Chattanooga and Atlanta) that made stops in the town into the 1960s. The Louisville and Nashville