In late September, a massive billow of smoke from a chemical fire spread over metro Atlanta, lingering for weeks and prompting national news coverage.
The smoke has cleared, but the anger has not dissipated in Conyers, the city of 20,000 where the fire occurred, and in surrounding areas. (Conyers lies 24 miles east of downtown Atlanta.) Smoke from the blaze left some residents with breathing difficulties, headaches, dizziness and skin rashes in the days that followed, along with a deepening worry about their community’s safety.
The fire was pool-chemical company BioLab’s fourth in the last two decades, a track record that has created what one observer described as “generational rage” among residents. Some are now turning to activism for the first time, joined by Atlanta-area, mostly Black-led community groups. The population of Conyers is nearly two-thirds Black, causing some in the community to argue that the repeated industrial accidents at the BioLab facility are an example of environmental racism.
The result: an unusually fast-growing grassroots movement led by residents fed up with a company that they say has jeopardized their health and the environment for decades. They also blame local, state and federal authorities for failing to inform the community about the accident’s cause and impact in a timely or transparent manner. Many residents want to see the BioLab facility, which is one of the largest employers in town, permanently shut down. Short of that, they seek to prevent future accidents.
BioLab declined to comment, directing Capital & Main to its website, which asserted the company’s commitment to supporting affected residents. In October, BioLab opened a 24/7 call center and a community assistance center, and it has provided ongoing debris removal services. According to the website, the company’s remediation efforts are being conducted under the oversight of Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division (GEPD). (In response to a query about the community’s concerns, the GEPD referred Capital & Main to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.) The cause of the most recent fire was still under investigation as of Nov. 1, according to the company’s website.
The response of the company and environmental regulators to the fire has been cold comfort to residents of Conyers and surrounding areas, who are demanding to know if their health is at risk. Locals have been confused about the accident’s reach and immediate and long-term impacts. Rockdale County, where BioLab is located, lifted shelter-in-place orders in mid-October after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that the accident site had been cleaned and levels of chlorine in the community’s air met federal standards. In the days following the fire, Nga Lee (Sally) Ng, professor at the Georgia Tech School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, reported high levels of chlorine and bromine in the air.
Residents also expressed deep frustration over what they say was a disorganized evacuation process and the mixed messages from local authorities about when it was safe to return home. Neke Stroud, a longtime Conyers resident, attempted to follow Rockdale County’s Sept. 29 evacuation orders but got stuck in traffic for hours with her elderly father, ultimately returning home. Local business owner Larry Cox tried to return to his company after Rockdale County lifted its shelter-in-place order on Oct. 17, only to be turned back by police.
Galvanized by the incident, residents of the small city and surrounding counties have gathered more than 11,000 signatures supporting a shut down of BioLab, nearly two-thirds from the Conyers area; a Facebook group called Stand Against BioLab in Rockdale County, Ga has attracted 1,600 members; local farmers are organizing amongst themselves; and residents are connecting with people in other communities affected by industrial disasters, including East Palestine, Ohio, which was exposed to toxic fumes after last year’s Norfolk Southern train wreck.
Independent research efforts have also been launched to assess everything from dioxin levels in soil to the fire’s impacts on the health and well-being of people and animals.
“I’ve never been in a situation where pretty much everyone on the ground, in the community, was ready to go, as soon as the disaster happened,” said Paul Glaze, spokesperson for Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund, about the grassroots response. The group is supporting some of the organizing efforts. Glaze said dozens of residents of Conyers and surrounding counties have contacted his organization, complaining of symptoms such as difficulty breathing, skin rashes, dizziness and headaches.
Madelyne Reece is one of the locals whose concerns have moved her to act. Reece moved to Conyers in 2020; her home is about five miles from the BioLab facility. She went to the emergency room four days after the chemical fire began because she was having trouble breathing and feeling nauseous. Doctors prescribed steroids. Since then, she’s suffered from a persistent cough.
Reece launched the Facebook group advocating for the BioLab facility’s closure in early October as a “place where we could figure out what we need to do and get ourselves heard.” Reece, who works in human resources at an Atlanta golf club, also spoke at a mid-October rally in downtown Conyers. “This is absolutely a first for me,” she said of both efforts.
Stroud is also new to activism. Her family has been living in Conyers for nearly a hundred years, but it wasn’t until BioLab sent plumes of smoke wafting over her neighborhood in September that she became the first among her relatives to help organize a protest rally.
Stroud’s mother developed colon cancer after the company’s 2004 fire and died in 2014. Her family suspected the cancer was tied to the fire and explored suing BioLab, but Stroud believes that her parents accepted a payment from BioLab and therefore could not sue the company. The company’s website states that “residents and business owners that receive standard financial assistance from the Company will not be asked to release any claims they may have against BioLab or its affiliates arising from the fire.” The company did not respond to a question about whether such terms existed in the past.
The company’s website also notes that as of Nov. 9, a call center set up after the fire had handled more than 15,700 inquiries related to claims, reimbursement requests and other concerns.
After the September accident, Stroud said, “I think I’ve had enough.” She began handing out flyers at a local Walmart inviting locals to the Oct. 19 protest rally aimed at shutting down the plant, which has been a presence in the area since 1973.
“Organizing is new to me. But this is personal,” she told Capital & Main. She said the company’s history of environmental contamination has led to “a situation where money outweighs life.”
Scott Smith, a Boston-based inventor and businessman, is leading one of the independent research efforts. He has worked with a volunteer team of scientists to test water, soil and debris for different chemicals following environmental disasters across the country since 2006, when his own company’s site was flooded with water contaminated by oil.
Smith has visited East Palestine; Flint, Michigan; and a host of other disaster sites in the last 18 years, around 60 all told. Since the BioLab fire, he’s traveled twice to Conyers, taking dozens of samples to be tested at a Massachusetts lab. He has yet to announce results.
Community reaction has not been limited to Conyers residents, as the billows of smoke have traveled with the wind. Ina Braxton runs a small farm in Covington, about 15 miles southeast of Conyers. She was outside on the morning of Sept. 29 when the fire ignited. “Within 30 minutes of the fire,” she said, “my skin started to itch and break out in bumps.” She’s been having difficulty breathing ever since, and wound up deciding to burn her crops — cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers — because she “didn’t want to put produce in the market and have someone getting sick.” Braxton estimates she’s lost more than $35,000 in produce, soil and equipment.
She contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a local agricultural extension service for advice — as well as BioLab — but got no response. In the absence of accurate, timely information, she’s decided to organize fellow farmers. “If no one’s looking our way, we have no idea what the summer’s going to look like,” she said, referring to the potential of lingering contamination in soil and water. She and 15 other small-farm owners are seeking help testing for harmful chemicals.
Braxton also said she would like to organize small farms statewide, and gain access to information about industrial polluters, “so when you’re buying farmland, you know if they could cause issues.”
Like all other residents interviewed for this story, Reece wants to see BioLab shut down in her town — but added, “I don’t want to dump this on somebody else.” Instead, she’d like to see laws that address such disasters and “bigger financial penalties when companies are out of compliance.”
Rockdale County, where Conyers is located, has sued the company, seeking compensation and to shut the BioLab facility down. County representatives did not respond to repeated queries. Reece said the lawsuit was “a step in the right direction,” adding, “The community taking to the streets moved the needle.”
Communities banding together after industrial accidents like the one at the BioLab facility is not a new phenomenon, said Tracy Perkins, Arizona State University professor and author of a book on environmental activism. These incidents “kick off heightened awareness of the risks people are living under … [and] pull people together quickly when they realize, ‘We all live here, we don’t want this noxious facility,’” she said.
At the same time, Perkins noted that shutting down a plant is “a big lift” for communities affected by pollution — especially when it employs many residents or supports the local tax base, as the BioLab facility does. Communities have found more success organizing to prevent polluters from setting up or expanding in the first place, she said.
At a Facebook Live event in October, East Palestine residents recounted cautionary tales about unscrupulous attorneys and explained the intricacies of class-action lawsuits. Many Georgia residents are grappling with tough decisions in the wake of the BioLab fire, including how to find the right lawyer, and whether to file a reimbursement claim with the company or join a lawsuit against it.
Connecting with other communities should be even easier for the nascent Georgia activists in the coming months. In early December, Rockdale County joined the Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition, a group of 35 communities advocating for stronger safety regulations, improved emergency response protocols and increased accountability from corporations and government agencies. The group was founded earlier this year by East Palestine resident Jami Wallace.
Meanwhile, Reece said, organizing against the company makes her feel like she has two jobs. The work is “stressful,” but also “gratifying,” she said. “It’s a beautiful thing our community is doing everything it can.”
