Rockdale County commissioner announces lawsuit against BioLab amid chemical fire
Updated at 4:15 p.m.
Rockdale County Commissioner Sherri Washington announced at a press conference on Monday that the county board plans to file a federal lawsuit against the chemical manufacturing company BioLab and its parent company, Kik Consumer Products.
Washington, who will be filing the lawsuit later in the week on behalf of the board, says that the filing comes in the aftermath of a fire from a BioLab facility in Conyers, Georgia, on Sept. 29.
The accident led to chemical exposure that impacted the air quality within the county, as well as posed potential health risks to community members.
Roughly 17,000 Rockdale residents received an evacuation order after the incident, while a shelter-in-place order took effect for others.
Rockdale Commissioner Doreen Williams was one of the residents evacuated alongside her daughter and husband, who both suffer from respiratory issues.
“If you could see the picture of that plume going over our house, you would understand the seriousness of this,” she said. “It’s not good for state our state or our nation.”
Washington said the lawsuit will compensate the county for the “nuisances” that BioLab has caused, as well lead to the permanent closing of the Conyers facility.
“We can no longer stand by and allow a corporation to continuously affect our current and future physical health, our mental health and our overall quality of life,” said the commissioner.
Washington cited that the company, which she claims has had four documented acts of negligence over the past 20 years, serves more of a liability than an asset for the county.
On Sept. 14, 2020, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board sent a team to investigate BioLab due to a chemical reaction that sent chlorine vapor throughout Conyers. A spokesperson for the company at the time told the USCSHIB team the incident was caused by water exposure inside the facility.
In 2016, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division received complaints of a smoke coming out of the facility that was “a chemical decomposition was reported to have started in the east portion of the Bio-Lab hazardous waste storage area.”
Twenty years ago, in 2004, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division fined BioLab $24,000 for a fire at a warehouse containing millions of pounds of pool chemicals. The incident led to the evacuation of thousands of residents.
With the filing of the lawsuit, she and her colleagues hope to prove that “no corporation is above the law.”
“For three weeks, I have listened to the numerous physical, mental and emotional tolls that this company’s negligence has caused our residents, and we want them gone,” said Washington. “And I will fight until my last breath to have them removed.”
Shayna Sacks, a New York-based attorney and partner for the Napoli Shkolnik law firm, will serve in litigation for the county.
In an email to WABE, the following statement was provided by a BioLab spokesperson .
“We have not seen the complaint yet and so it would be inappropriate for us to comment, other than to note that BioLab worked collaboratively with the County and other parties as part of the Unified Command to successfully complete the emergency response operations at our Conyers facility, while at all times prioritizing public health and safety. We also worked diligently alongside the County to quickly stand up support resources for community members – including a process to be reimbursed for expenses related to the incident – and we remain fully committed to making things right for impacted area residents and business owners.”
Marisa Mecke contributed to this report.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to include a statement from a BioLab representative.
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