What was in the BioLab fire plume? Georgia Tech study has some answers.
The towering plume of smoke from the BioLab chemical fire in Rockdale County nearly two years ago contained compounds from more than two dozen chemical families, including dangerous amounts of bromide, a naturally occurring element that can irritate the skin and mucus membranes, according to a recent study from Georgia Tech.
The September 2024 fire spurred evacuations of thousands, weekslong overnight shelter-in-place orders, road closures, including parts of I-20 and led many to seek medical attention. A chemical smell wafted across the metro area, with haze seen in Atlanta and elsewhere. The fire also prompted an investigation from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which is ongoing, and a long-term health study from a group that includes the Morehouse School of Medicine.
The fire released chemicals including chlorine, chloramine and chlorine compounds, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency said at the time. The agency also said bromide was present, but at low levels.
A mass spectrometer — an instrument used to identify and measure unknown compounds — showed differently, said Greg Huey, professor and chairperson of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. The levels of bromide were “unexpectedly high,” with concentrations 21 miles away in Midtown Atlanta exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s acute exposure guideline levels by a threshold of four.
This means bromide levels were even higher in Conyers and Rockdale.
“What we saw in our data was surprising to us,” Huey said in a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He said they should have expected those results in retrospect, however.
Conyers officials evacuated 17,000 people from the area, a move that Huey said likely saved lives.
“It could have been much worse,” Huey said.
He repeatedly praised emergency officials for a quick and thorough response: “I think getting the people away from this was important.”
A BioLab spokesperson did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment from the AJC.
A spokesperson from the Georgia Department of Public Health declined to comment, saying the agency was not involved in the study and only recently received a copy. An upcoming public health assessment will address the study in an appendix, agency spokesperson Nancy Nydam Shirek said in an email to the AJC.
The agency’s chemical hazards program and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is preparing that assessment, which likely will be released for public comment at the end of this year, Shirek said.
A Georgia Environmental Protection Division spokesperson also declined to comment, and the EPA did not respond to requests from the AJC.
For its part, BioLab said more than a year ago it would not restart operations. The chemical pool maker had operated in Rockdale County since 1973 and at a time was one of its largest employers.
The September 2024 fire was at least the fourth major fire or chemical leak at BioLab over two decades. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BioLab after concluding that improperly stored chemicals led to the fire. Numerous lawsuits have been filed as well.
Huey said he and colleagues could see and smell the plume after the fire. Researchers had shut down their lab preemptively, worried they would lose power when Hurricane Helene moved through the area.
Huey suggested turning on the mass spectrometer, however, after everyone noticed the plume.
“There was obviously something going on,” he said.
“You really have no way of knowing the complexity or the toxicity of the plumes of this event, which makes it a higher priority for them not to happen or for this to happen in less densely populated areas.”
A note of disclosure
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