CONYERS, Ga. — There is no timetable for cleaning up the site of a chemical reaction that sparked a large fire in Rockdale County.
On Sunday, officials said a sprinkler head malfunctioned inside a Bio Lab facility on Dogwood Drive just outside the city limits of Conyers.
The water that encountered chlorine being stored at the Bio Lab facility caused a chemical reaction that sparked a fire.
It’s known, especially by anyone who has worked around the chemical, you never add water to Chlorine, you always add chlorine to water.
On Wednesday evening, Conyers City Council held its first meeting since the fire. While the facility is not within the city limits, both City Manager Kameron Kelley and Mayr Vince Evans acknowledged the situation at the beginning of the meeting.
“The mayor and I have met with Bio Lab VP of their HR, and they were on site and in the community to see what the community needs,” Kelley explained.
He added, “They understand the level of concern that this is bringing.”
As of Wednesday night, leadership from neither Bio Lab nor its parent company, KIK Consumer Products, have offered to take any questions from the community or journalists about the fire or chemicals being stored at the facility.
Kameron said he and Mayor Evans toured the facility on Wednesday to learn more about Sunday's events and the clean-up efforts.
“I did look them directly and tell them in the coming weeks you guys have a lot of hard questions you’re going to have to answer,” Kelley said.
He made it clear, “You’re going to have to give answers. We’re not going to dance around because there are major concerns with what occurred.”
No one has confirmed how many chemicals were stored in the facility. Officials have confirmed only chlorine.
According to Rockdale County Fire, a plume of gas has been emitted from the site since the fire was extinguished on Sunday afternoon.
Kelley explained that this is what’s described as “off-gassing,” which is the process by which chemicals are released into the air from products and materials.
“When the building was on fire, and the roof collapsed, the roof has now fallen on much of the product,” Kelley explained.
He said this was the reason for so much “off gassing” which many have mistaken for smoke. He said as crews work to clear the debris with heavy machinery on site, the “off gassing” may intensify.
“As they uncover material incased in the roof when it fell, that’s when you see another big burst of off gassing occurred.”
Kelley explained the removal and clean-up is a slow process. He said once the chemical reaction happened it was basically a “domino effect” and now it must continue to be neutralized.
The big question many residents have is what chemicals besides chlorine are emitted into the air.
A former employee of Bio Lab said it’s likely the public will never know what chemicals were inside the facility, just as the information was never released after the 2020 fire. He said the company would cite it as trade secrets and never disclose the information.
Rockdale County officials only refer to the chemicals as ‘product.’
As residents demanded air quality testing results around the county and other outlying areas, 11 Alive saw a reading happening in real time on Wednesday night.
The EPA tester was about .7 miles from the facility. At 10:49 p.m., it took a reading that showed the Chlorine level at 0.1 parts per million (ppm).
The action level for chlorine is 0.5 ppm, which is considered dangerous. The reading at the testing site 11Alive was well below that threshold.
Rockdale County Emergency issued a Shelter in Place from 7 p.m. through 7 a.m., which continued through Friday. When sheltering in place, the county suggests limiting time outdoors and closing windows and doors.