CONYERS, Ga. — An interactive tool can help residents track current air quality after a fire at a Conyers plant sent a chemical cloud over Rockdale County.
The city of Conyers was evacuated, and the wider Rockdale County was put under shelter-in-place guidance after the fire broke out at the BioLab plant on Sunday. The fire has since been contained, but lingering material has been "off-gassing" and sending a plume of chemical smoke into the sky. While a shelter-in-place has since been lifted, residents are being told to be on the lookout for plumes and stay indoors if it moves into their area.
"If the cloud moves over your vicinity, please shelter in place until the cloud moves out," the county said.
For a time, some surrounding counties reported the smell of chlorine and a haze in areas, however officials have been conducting air testing and said the amount of chlorine in the air is not at harmful levels. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explained that the "odor threshold" for chlorine is very low, meaning people can smell it at very low concentrations that do not cause harm."
The EPA said it has provided Rockdale County air monitoring results. It has made an interactive tool available that "allows users to view real-time data from instruments in the field." If you're on a mobile device and don't see the dots, click the Viper (it looks like a WiFi icon) on the left sidebar. It will show you the alarm states. Then click the same icon again and you'll return to the map. You should see green, yellow or orange dots around the Conyers area. Click into those dots to see air quality test results.
The EPA is also providing air quality testing results every 12 hours. Click here to access the latest reports.
BioLab is a company that makes pool and spa treatments, and in the initial incident in the early hours on Sunday, officials said a sprinkler that malfunctioned caused a reaction between the water a "water-reactive chemical," believed to be chlorine-based, stored in the facility. The chemicals involved in that incident appeared to exacerbate the fire and send up huge smoke clouds. The fire was extinguished but reignited around noon, according to authorities. It was put out for good around four hours later.
But two days later, a chemical plume continued to rise from the site because of water continuing to react with chemicals at the site. Crews have been working to remove those chemicals ever since.