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Fire at Georgia chemical plant releases chlorine into the air, authorities say

News Feed
Monday, September 30, 2024

A poisonous plume of chlorine led authorities to order tens of thousands of people to evacuate or huddle inside their homes Monday as authorities in the Atlanta area shut down roads, schools and government offices.County officials said Monday morning that air-quality surveys from the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Environmental Protection Division “revealed the harmful irritant chlorine” about 24 hours after a small fire broke out at the BioLab manufacturing plant in Conyers, Ga., sparking a chain reaction that would send a billowing cloud of gas into the air.Authorities urged Rockdale County residents to shelter in place and recommended that businesses close. On Sunday, they ordered the evacuation of about 17,000 residents near the facility and issued a stay-at-home order that affected about 77,000 others as officials in Atlanta braced for the plume to waft in their direction.On Monday the county’s government buildings and parks, as well as the nearby Newton County school district, were closed.Follow Climate & environmentBioLab said in a statement that all of its employees are accounted for and that no one had reported injuries. The company said its top priority is “ensuring the community’s safety.”“Our teams are working around-the-clock to respond to the ongoing situation at our facility in Conyers, Georgia,” the statement on the BioLab website said. “We continue to work collaboratively with first responders and local authorities and have deployed specialized teams from out of state to the site to bolster and support their efforts. We are all focused on remediating the situation as rapidly as possible.”A spokesperson for the company, which makes pool-cleaning products, declined to comment further Monday morning.Rockdale County Fire Rescue Chief Marian McDaniel said Sunday that a plume of smoke will probably be visible for several days.At about 5:30 a.m. Sunday, a small fire broke out on the roof of the BioLab manufacturing plant, which produces chlorine products for pools and spas, according to authorities. Firefighters contained that fire and started removing product from the building, McDaniel said Sunday at a news conference. The fire reignited midday, forcing firefighters to work for another two to three hours to get it back under control. The plant’s roof and some of its walls collapsed, McDaniel said.The chlorine products stymied efforts to squelch the fire, McDaniel said, because the water firefighters used to beat back the blaze activated the chlorine, sending plumes of it into the air.“We’ve been fighting the fire with water; the water’s been aggravating the chemical,” McDaniel said.Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation and shelter-in-place order for nearly 100,000 people, directives that remained more than 24 hours after the fire started. They advised people not to run their air conditioning because it might suck in the chlorine-tainted air. Two emergency shelters have been opened for evacuees.Sunday’s fire was at least the third hazmat incident at BioLab’s Conyers plant in the past two decades.This is a developing story that will be updated.

Rockdale County officials ordered people to evacuate the area near the BioLab plant in Conyers, Ga., and they said others should stay home to avoid the “harmful irritant chlorine.”

A poisonous plume of chlorine led authorities to order tens of thousands of people to evacuate or huddle inside their homes Monday as authorities in the Atlanta area shut down roads, schools and government offices.

County officials said Monday morning that air-quality surveys from the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Environmental Protection Division “revealed the harmful irritant chlorine” about 24 hours after a small fire broke out at the BioLab manufacturing plant in Conyers, Ga., sparking a chain reaction that would send a billowing cloud of gas into the air.

Authorities urged Rockdale County residents to shelter in place and recommended that businesses close. On Sunday, they ordered the evacuation of about 17,000 residents near the facility and issued a stay-at-home order that affected about 77,000 others as officials in Atlanta braced for the plume to waft in their direction.

On Monday the county’s government buildings and parks, as well as the nearby Newton County school district, were closed.

Follow Climate & environment

BioLab said in a statement that all of its employees are accounted for and that no one had reported injuries. The company said its top priority is “ensuring the community’s safety.”

“Our teams are working around-the-clock to respond to the ongoing situation at our facility in Conyers, Georgia,” the statement on the BioLab website said. “We continue to work collaboratively with first responders and local authorities and have deployed specialized teams from out of state to the site to bolster and support their efforts. We are all focused on remediating the situation as rapidly as possible.”

A spokesperson for the company, which makes pool-cleaning products, declined to comment further Monday morning.

Rockdale County Fire Rescue Chief Marian McDaniel said Sunday that a plume of smoke will probably be visible for several days.

At about 5:30 a.m. Sunday, a small fire broke out on the roof of the BioLab manufacturing plant, which produces chlorine products for pools and spas, according to authorities. Firefighters contained that fire and started removing product from the building, McDaniel said Sunday at a news conference. The fire reignited midday, forcing firefighters to work for another two to three hours to get it back under control. The plant’s roof and some of its walls collapsed, McDaniel said.

The chlorine products stymied efforts to squelch the fire, McDaniel said, because the water firefighters used to beat back the blaze activated the chlorine, sending plumes of it into the air.

“We’ve been fighting the fire with water; the water’s been aggravating the chemical,” McDaniel said.

Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation and shelter-in-place order for nearly 100,000 people, directives that remained more than 24 hours after the fire started. They advised people not to run their air conditioning because it might suck in the chlorine-tainted air. Two emergency shelters have been opened for evacuees.

Sunday’s fire was at least the third hazmat incident at BioLab’s Conyers plant in the past two decades.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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In a setback for the pesticide industry, Democrats have succeeded in removing a rider from a congressional appropriations bill that would have helped protect pesticide makers from being sued and could have hindered state efforts to warn about pesticide risks.Chellie Pingree, a Democratic representative from Maine and ranking member of the House appropriations interior, environment, and related agencies subcommittee, said Monday that the controversial measure pushed by the agrochemical giant Bayer and industry allies has been stripped from the 2026 funding bill.The move is final, as Senate Republican leaders have agreed not to revisit the issue, Pingree said.“I just drew a line in the sand and said this cannot stay in the bill,” Pingree told the Guardian. “There has been intensive lobbying by Bayer. This has been quite a hard fight.”The now-deleted language was part of a larger legislative effort that critics say is aimed at limiting litigation against pesticide industry leader Bayer, which sells the widely used Roundup herbicides.An industry alliance set up by Bayer has been pushing for both state and federal laws that would make it harder for consumers to sue over pesticide risks to human health and has successfully lobbied for the passing of such laws in Georgia and North Dakota so far.The specific proposed language added to the appropriations bill blocked federal funds from being used to “issue or adopt any guidance or any policy, take any regulatory action, or approve any labeling or change to such labeling” inconsistent with the conclusion of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) human health assessment.Critics said the language would have impeded states and local governments from warning about risks of pesticides even in the face of new scientific findings about health harms if such warnings were not consistent with outdated EPA assessments. The EPA itself would not be able to update warnings without finalizing a new assessment, the critics said.And because of the limits on warnings, critics of the rider said, consumers would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to sue pesticide makers for failing to warn them of health risks if the EPA assessments do not support such warnings.“This provision would have handed pesticide manufacturers exactly what they’ve been lobbying for: federal preemption that stops state and local governments from restricting the use of harmful, cancer-causing chemicals, adding health warnings, or holding companies accountable in court when people are harmed,” Pingree said in a statement. “It would have meant that only the federal government gets a say – even though we know federal reviews can take years, and are often subject to intense industry pressure.”Pingree tried but failed to overturn the language in a July appropriations committee hearing.Bayer, the key backer of the legislative efforts, has been struggling for years to put an end to thousands of lawsuits filed by people who allege they developed cancer from their use of Roundup and other glyphosate-based weed killers sold by Bayer. The company inherited the litigation when it bought Monsanto in 2018 and has paid out billions of dollars in settlements and jury verdicts but still faces several thousand ongoing lawsuits. Bayer maintains its glyphosate-based herbicides do not cause cancer and are safe when used as directed.When asked for comment on Monday, Bayer said that no company should have “blanket immunity” and it disputed that the appropriations bill language would have prevented anyone from suing pesticide manufacturers. 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Forever Chemicals' Common in Cosmetics, but FDA Says Safety Data Are Scant

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It’s unclear if that property was also destroyed in the Palisades fire, and, if so, whether it had been already remediated.“I questioned if this was allowable and then the crew dumped material into the excavator bucket and planned to move it on the lowboy with material in bucket,” a federal supervisor wrote in a report intended to track performance of contractors. “Don’t think this is allowed.” According to the report, the workers also left glass, ash and other fire debris on the property the crew had been clearing, because they “were in a rush to get to the next site.” Experts who reviewed the reports said the behavior described may amount to illegal dumping under California law. Other reports obtained by The Times describe federal cleanup workers, on multiple occasions, using ash-contaminated soil to backfill holes and smooth out uneven portions of fire-destroyed properties in the Palisades burn scar. If that were true, it would be a breach of state policy that says contaminated soil from areas undergoing environmental cleanup cannot be used in this way. The reports also cite multiple occasions where workers walked through already cleared properties with dirty boot covers, possibly re-contaminating them. The inspectors also reported crews spraying contaminated pool water onto neighboring properties and into storm drains, and excavator operators using toothed buckets that caused clean and contaminated soil to be commingled.“Obviously, there was some really good work done,” state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades) said about the federal cleanup. “But it appears that we’ve got some folks who are knowingly breaking the law and cutting corners in their cleanup protocol. “We’ve got to figure out how widespread this was, and anybody who was responsible for having broken a law in this area needs to be held accountable.” The Army Corps did not respond to requests for comment. An ECC executive said that without information such as the properties’ addresses or parcel numbers, he could not verify whether the accusations made in the oversight reports were substantiated by the companies’ own investigations or if any issues raised by the inspectors were resolved. Such specifics were redacted in the version of the reports sent to The Times. “At a high level, ECC does not authorize the placement of wildfire debris or ash on neighboring properties, does not permit the use of contaminated material as fill, and operates under continuous [Army Corps] oversight,” said Glenn Sweatt, ECC’s vice president of contracts and compliance.Between February and September, the Army Corps responded to nearly 1,100 public complaints or other inquiries related to the federal fire cleanup. Over 20% of grievances were related to quality of work, according to the Army Corps assessment of complaints. Some of these complaints point to the same concerns raised by the inspectors. For example, a resident in the Eaton burn scar filed a complaint on June 19 that “crews working on adjacent properties moved fire debris and ash onto his property after he specifically asked them not to.” Other property owners in Altadena filed complaints that crews had left all sorts of fire debris on their property — in some cases, buried in the ground. The Army Corps or ECC ordered crews to go back and finish up the debris removal for some properties. Other times, the officials left the work and costs to disaster victims. A Palisades property owner complained on May 7 that after the Army Corps supposedly completed cleaning his property, he found “parts of broken foundation [that] were buried to avoid full removal.” He said it cost him $40,000 to hire a private contractor to gather up and dispose of several dumpsters of busted-up concrete. James Mayfield, a hazardous materials specialist and owner of Mayfield Environmental Engineering, was hired by more than 200 homeowners affected by the fires to remove debris and contaminated soil — including, in some cases, from properties already cleared by Army Corps contractors. When Mayfield and his workers excavated additional soil from Army Corps-cleared properties, he said they occasionally uncovered ash, slabs of burned stucco, and other debris. “All you have to do is scoop and you can see the rest of the house underneath the ground,” Mayfield said. “It was never cleared at all.” After January’s wildfires, local health authorities warned the soil could be riddled with harmful pollutants from burned-down homes and cars, including lead, a heavy metal that can cause irreversible brain damage when inhaled or ingested by young children.Soil testing has been standard practice after major wildfires in California since 2007. Typically, after work crews clear away fire debris and several inches of topsoil from burned-down homes, federal or state disaster officials arrange for the same contractors to test the soil for lingering contamination. If they find contamination above state benchmarks, they are required to excavate another layer of that soil and conduct additional rounds of testing.But the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires has been different. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has repeatedly refused to pay for soil testing in California, insisting the practice is not necessary to remove any immediate threats after the fires. The Newsom administration unsuccessfully petitioned FEMA to reconsider conducting soil testing to protect returning residents and workers. But as pressure mounted on the state to fund soil testing, the California Environmental Protection Agency secretary downplayed public health risks from fire contamination.Indeed, the vast majority of wildfire cleanups in California are managed by state agencies. Since the January wildfires, California officials have been noticeably guarded when questioned about how the state will respond when the next major wildfire inevitably strikes.Asked whether the state will continue to adhere to its long-standing post-fire soil sampling protocols, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services wouldn’t directly answer whether it would pay for soil testing after future wildfires. Its director, Nancy Ward, declined to be interviewed.“California has the most advanced testing systems in the nation, and we remain committed to advocating for the safe, timely removal of debris after a wildfire,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement. “Protecting public health and the well-being of impacted communities remains the state’s foremost priority.”Some environmental experts and lawmakers worry that abandoning long-established wildfire protocols, like soil testing, may set a precedent where disaster victims will assume more costs and work to ensure that their properties are safe to return to and rebuild upon.U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D–Los Angeles) called for the Army Corps to review the results of large-scale soil testing initiatives, including data from USC, to determine which contractors were assigned to clean properties where heavy contamination persists. Such an analysis, he said, might help the federal government figure out which contractors performed poor work, so that they they aren’t hired in future disasters. “I’m going to press the Army Corps to look at where the testing indicates there was still contaminants and who is the contractor for that, to see whether there are certain contractors that had a high failure rate,” Sherman said.“I want to make sure they’re ... evaluating these contractors vis-à-vis the next disaster,” he added. “And, ultimately it’s in the testing.”Throughout much of Altadena and Pacific Palisades, thousands of empty lots are awaiting permits to rebuild. But many property owners fear the possibility of contamination. The Department of Angels, a community-led nonprofit formed after the January wildfires, surveyed 2,300 residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the Eaton and Palisades blazes. About one-third of respondents said they wanted testing but had not received it.“The government abandoned testing and left us on our own,” one victim wrote. “We have each had to find out what is the best route to test and remediate, but without standardization and consistency, we are a giant experiment.”

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