Odor to Linger as Cleanup Continues at Chemical Plant near Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(TNS)
Cleanup efforts at the site of a now-extinguished fire at the BioLab plant in Rockdale County will again kick up more smoke on Friday, and there is no timetable for when that work will be finished.
Officials across southeastern parts of metro Atlanta have warned residents that they may continue to see hazy skies and smell a chlorine odor through the weekend. The plume is caused by the pool chemicals produced at the plant reacting with the water that was used to contain Sunday’s fire.
“When the chemicals stored in our facility come into contact with water, they slowly release chlorine — as they are intended to do when sanitizing a swimming pool,” BioLab said in a statement Friday. “This release, and the water that was needed to control it, have contributed to the ongoing visible haze over our facility.”
Rockdale fire Deputy Chief James Robinson, who said he helps make decisions about evacuation and shelter-in-place orders, described the smell as “normal.”
“When you open the tap on your faucet, sometimes you smell a little chlorine. When you go outside around the swimming pool, you smell a little bit of chlorine. It’s OK to smell a little bit of chlorine,” he said in a video posted by the county Friday. “If you feel that your eyes are starting to burn, that would be the first sign you want to go back indoors and shelter in place.”
Georgia Poison Control reported it received hundreds of calls from people with symptoms related to the BioLab chemical release. And, “a few hundred” patients have gone to emergency rooms and clinics complaining of symptoms associated with an exposure to the smoke, Georgia Department of Public Health epidemiologist Cherie Drenzek told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency advises people to limit their time outdoors and consider seeking medical care if they start to experience symptoms such as eye and airway irritation, coughing, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, chest tightness and headaches.
In the meantime, efforts are focused on “neutralizing the wet chemical product” at the site to prevent it from smoking, BioLab representatives said.
The building’s walls caved in during the firefighting efforts, trapping the chemical products under concrete, Robinson said. The walls have to be lifted up, causing hot gas to rise and creating “pockets of little plumes,” Robinson said.
BioLab said it has deployed two specialist hazardous material crews from Mississippi and Louisiana to help with the remediation efforts. It has also engaged two water management companies, as well as technical chemical experts. The companies were not specified.
BioLab has had a history of fires and chemical releases at its facilities in Georgia and elsewhere, records show. Since Sunday’s fire in Conyers, environmental groups have called for the plant’s closure.
Officials continue to monitor air quality, and more monitors are being added Friday, Robinson said. That will “ensure that we know exactly where that plume is moving at all times,” he added.
“I’m not saying that there won’t be some pollutants,” he added, “but as we work through that (cleanup) process, we ask for a little bit of grace and knowing that we here at Rockdale County are doing everything we can to get rid of this chemical in the safest and most environmentally (friendly) way as possible.”
BioLab said it has established a community assistance center for people to get information about resources and services and said it has donated to local organizations to help support residents. The company did not provide details about where that center will be or how to access the information.
— Staff writer Taylor Croft contributed to this article
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