SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It's been a year since a massive fire at a chemical plant near Atlanta produced a plume of toxic smoke that remained for days. Federal reports point to safety lapses inside the plant, but new questions are also being raised about the response. Pamela Kirkland with Georgia Public Broadcasting has been following the aftermath on the podcast Manufacturing Danger and brings us this update.
PAMELA KIRKLAND, BYLINE: The 911 call came in at 5 a.m. on September 29 last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: Rockdale County 911, how can I help you?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We got a sprinkler head burst at BioLab. There's chemical smoke everywhere.
KIRKLAND: BioLab is one of the nation's largest producers of pool and spa chemicals, like chlorine tablets. The toxic plume from the fire drifted across majority-Black Rockdale County, forcing evacuations and shelter-in-place orders. In Atlanta, 20 miles away, people noticed a haze and a sharp chlorine odor. For longtime residents near the plant, this wasn't the first time.
JEAN SADLER: In 2004, we only saw gray and black clouds. This one, we've seen pink. We've seen black. We've seen beige.
KIRKLAND: The company has had five major accidents over 20 years. Jean Sadler has lived through all of them.
SADLER: You hear a siren coming our way and you think, oh, my God. What's going on?
KIRKLAND: She's now part of a class action lawsuit brought by residents who are reporting health issues they say are stemming from the fire. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is still investigating but has already said reactive materials came in contact with water, which triggered at least two fires. They also found that the sprinkler system had corrosion, like saltwater eating away at metal, and had been leaking in the weeks before the fire.
RANDY GARCIA: When I first saw the fire, I assumed it was the leaky sprinklers because it was a constant issue.
KIRKLAND: Randy Garcia left BioLab five months before the accident. He was the onsite engineer and says he had been replacing corroded sprinkler heads until the day he quit. Residents now have questions about exactly what chemicals were released in the fire. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency monitored the air right afterwards and found unsafe chlorine levels near the plant, mostly overnight. The rest of the county showed acceptable levels. But residents now say their testing wasn't enough. They brought in their own tester, Scott Smith, known for his work after the 2023 East Palestine train derailment in Ohio. He says the EPA wasn't thorough enough in their monitoring.
SCOTT SMITH: They don't look for the full spectrum of chemicals. I say you can't find what you don't look for. Then they declare everything safe.
KIRKLAND: Smith says his sampling found dangerous chemical byproducts, dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. An EPA spokesperson said in an email that it takes concerns about its emergency response seriously but did not respond to Smith's specific findings. BioLab declined to respond to this story. The company disputes any federal finding from the chemical board investigation so far but says it is still cooperating. BioLab also faces a federal lawsuit from the county. In May, the company said it will no longer make pool chemicals in Conyers but will continue to use the facility to store and distribute its products. After five fires in 20 years, Jean Sadler wants none of it near her house.
SADLER: You work so hard all of your life to obtain just a living. And then it's things like this there's nothing I can do about that would drain you.
KIRKLAND: The Chemical Safety Board says its investigation could take another six months.
For NPR News, I'm Pamela Kirkland in Conyers, Georgia.
DETROW: You could find out more about the history of the company and the aftermath of the chemical fire on the podcast Manufacturing Danger: The Biolab Story from GPB. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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