Orders to evacuate and shelter-in-place were lifted in Rockdale County, Ga. on Monday night after authorities deemed the environment safe after a chemical plant fire broke out Sunday morning.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which is monitoring the air for chlorine or hydrochloric acid, said the latest readings found the air quality to be safe for residents to go back. The Rockdale County Water Resources also found the water was safe.
The billowing plume from a chemical plant in Conyers, Ga. about 30 miles east of Atlanta, that officials said contained chlorine, reached parts of Atlanta on Monday, though officials said that it posed no serious safety issues to the city.
While the fire was producing smells, the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said in a statement that there were “no immediate life safety issues” for the city. Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management said weather conditions tonight could bring back haze, but expect it to clear in the morning on Tuesday.
The agency added that residents may smell a chlorine odor that is “unlikely to cause harm to most people.” It advised people who were concerned about respiratory issues to stay inside, close windows and doors and turn off heating and cooling systems.
The county facilities and businesses can return to normal starting Tuesday.
Schools near the plant were closed on Monday and 17,000 people remained under evacuation orders that were issued on Sunday as officials tried to clean up the chemical product. The Rockdale County Emergency Management Agency extended a shelter-in-place order for about 90,000 residents on Monday.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an independent federal agency that looks into accidental chemical releases, began an investigation into the cause of the fire on Monday and any safety gaps that allowed it to occur.
The plume was produced by a small fire that erupted at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday on the roof of a plant for BioLab, a manufacturer of pool and spa treatment products, Fire Chief Marian McDaniel of Rockdale County said at a news conference on Sunday. Air quality surveys detected chlorine in the air emitting from the lab’s location, the county said in a statement.
The fire triggered the plant’s sprinkler system, which caused water to mix with a “water-reactive chemical,” and created a large plume of smoke and chemicals, Chief McDaniel said.
The federal agency investigating the fire published a report in April 2023 on the company, BioLab, after two other chemical releases from their plants, both of which occurred in 2020. The agency called for “federal regulators to increase their oversight of hazards associated with reactive chemicals,” according to its news release on Monday.
BioLab said in an emailed statements that it was supporting the state, local and federal officials who were working to clean up the site on Monday.
“Our top priority remains ensuring the community’s safety,” a company representative said in the statement.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board said that BioLab manufactures chemicals containing trichloroisocyanuric acid, also known as T.C.C.A., which breaks down slowly in large bodies of water and released chlorine. When T.C.C.A. is in contact with only a small amount of water, “it can undergo a chemical reaction that generates heat” which can cause T.C.C.A. to decompose and produce toxic chlorine gas, the agency said.
Local authorities and BioLab have not confirmed that this chemical caused the plume and the cause of the fire was not immediately clear.
Chief McDaniel said on Monday that the fire was contained on Sunday, and that a company was working to clear the debris in order to contain the product that is causing white smoke to continue to pour out from the site. She does not believe any part of the building will be left standing. Some of the chemical product has been contained and is being stored on the property, she said.
Smoke may linger for “several days,” Chief McDaniel warned on Sunday. Eric J. Levett, the Rockdale County sheriff, urged residents to stay out of the area because wind might blow smoke beyond the evacuation zone.
It was not immediately clear what health hazards the plume might pose.
“Our employees are accounted for with no injuries reported,” BioLab said in a statement on Sunday night.
Piedmont Rockdale Hospital in the city remained open but was moving some patients to other facilities, Sharon Webb, the director of the Emergency Management Agency for Rockdale County, said on Sunday night. The school district for Newton County, which is southeast of Rockdale County, announced it was closing its schools on Monday, and all county government offices were closed. Other schools, including in DeKalb and Gwinnett counties, are limiting outdoor activities.
City officials said that state emergency teams were helping but resources were stretched thin because of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Chief McDaniel said that this was “the third incident of this magnitude” at the plant in the seven years she has been in her role.
In September 2020, a plume of hazardous chemicals was released at the Conyers plant, exposing company workers and nine firefighters to “dangerous fumes, and caused a portion of I-20 near the facility to be closed for approximately six hours,” according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board report.
Surrounding businesses were evacuated and the estimated property damage was more than $1 million, the report said.
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