ROCKDALE COUNTY, Ga. — In Erin Goldstein's corner of Rockdale County, the animals thrive with acres of open land. She thought her farm would be the perfect place to care for a rescue horse.
"Our whole goal was to help him," she said. "We wanted to be a refuge for him."
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She and her husband created that refuge for Spirit the rescue horse — until they noticed chunks of debris scattered across their pasture. Goldstein has no idea what black chunks are, but said they appeared after the chemical fire at BioLab.
"With rescues, a lot of times the situation is that humans have failed them, but I don't want to be that human," she said. "We want to be good stewards for God's creatures and certainly don't want to be a part of something that would be harmful for them."
Unfortunately, that meant evacuating Spirit to a farm further from the chemical plume until she gets concrete answers about what's in her yard.
"We've had nothing. There's been no communication... We don't know what is here that we can't see," she said. "At some point, we have to make a decision."
Goldstein and Spirit both struggle with health problems. Plus, she has three rescue dogs that love to run around the farm.
"I'm having more and more kind of labored breathing, some irritation, some coughing that was a little more than what I typically experience," she said. "Our biggest concern right now — because what's done is done — is just the lack of answers of how to clean this up. We've obviously been left on our own to figure that out."
This year has been a tough one for Goldstein's farm. Their home flooded; then Hurricane Helene knocked down trees. The chemical concerns brought her to tears.
"We bought this knowing that we wanted to get back outside and that we wanted to enjoy the land and we wanted to be a part of restoring its beauty," she said. "It just makes you want to cry... we feel kind of like we're just out here floundering on our own."
In a statement, the Georgia Department of Agriculture told 11Alive it is monitoring the ongoing chemical event and its impact on the surrounding area.
"Impacted Georgians can submit agriculture-related questions and any reports of animal mortality directly to us at chemicalevent@agr.georgia.gov," a spokesperson said. "This is an evolving situation, and we will provide updated recommendations/guidance as soon as we receive more information."