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Months after a chemical fire released plumes of acrid smoke across metro Atlanta, forcing thousands to evacuate, BioLab has decided not to resume manufacturing at its Conyers plant.
But the company plans to continue to store hazardous chemicals on the site for distribution as efforts to hold it accountable for the Sept. 29 fire – and the cleanup – continue.
“Ultimately, depending on what the long-term health effects are for this community, I don’t know that we will ever be made whole,” said Madelyne Reece, a community leader and founder of the Stand Against BioLab in Rockdale County, Ga., Facebook group.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is still investigating the safety lapses that led to the fire. The state Environmental Protection Division is negotiating with BioLab on a cleanup plan. Rockdale County and a group of residents are seeking compensation through lawsuits.
Here’s where it all stands.
Is BioLab closing? No. But manufacturing won’t resume
Lawrenceville-based BioLab, owned by Kik Consumer Products, announced on May 15 it will not restart manufacturing at its Conyers site. But the facility is not closing and will continue to fill orders with products manufactured at other sites, spokesperson Daniel Hoadley said. As a result, some jobs will be eliminated, but he wouldn’t say how many. BioLab is “providing support to those [employees] impacted as they transition from the business,” he said.
The company will keep about 100 jobs at the facility, according to a Rockdale County press release.
Conyers store owner Chima Ekeke said he wants the company to leave. He lost business in the weeks following the fire as schools and businesses stayed closed, he said.
“I don’t feel safe that the company [is] remaining in this area. I mean, who knows what will happen again tomorrow, right?” Ekeke said. His store is located about two miles from the BioLab facility in downtown Conyers. “They have to find a suitable place for them to relocate, a lot of neighborhoods and a lot of businesses [are] around here.”
“The problem is those chemicals are still there,” said Cheryl Garcia, a Rockdale resident and community activist. “We want them gone.”
The chemicals stored in the facility included reactive chemicals like trichloroisocyanuric acid (TCCA), sodium dichloroisocyanurate (DCCA), and bromochloro-5,5-dimethylimidazolidine-2,4-dione (BCDMH).
The plant had at least three previous fires: one in May 2004 and two in September 2020. BioLab also has a facility in Henry County, according to its website.
What is the status of the investigations?
BioLab announced on May 15 that it had finished “remediation” at the site, and Hoadley told Healthbeat, “The cleanup of the area affected by the fire is complete.”
However, the state Environmental Protection Division said the process is ongoing, and it is working on a formal enforcement action for the BioLab fire.
“On March 5, 2025, EPD proposed a consent order to BioLab. The proposed consent order includes provisions for the development and implementation of a remediation plan. Negotiations regarding the terms and conditions of the order are currently ongoing. As the order has not yet been finalized, additional details are not available at this time,” spokesperson Sara Lips said Monday in an email.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board released an update on its investigation of the fire in May, though it could take many more months to complete. The independent federal agency can investigate chemical accidents and make recommendations but does not issue penalties.
BioLab was storing more than double the amount of chemicals at the facility – nearly 14 million pounds at the time of the fire – than it had reported for permit application purposes, and it experienced problems with its fire- suppression system in the months before the blaze, the report said. The company set up a 24/7 fire watch in the months leading up to the fire.
Still, there were multiple failures.
“The more we learn about this unacceptable incident, the more disturbing it is,” CSB Chairperson Steve Owens said in a press release accompanying the May update. “This is a stark reminder of the very serious dangers that can occur when enormous amounts of reactive and corrosive chemicals are stored without proper safeguards in place.”
Investigators have not determined where the water that set off the chemical reaction that sparked the fire came from, according to the report.
There were frequent problems with the facility’s sprinkler system in the months prior to the fire. “Multiple sprinkler system failures” occurred in a part of the warehouse “due to the corrosion of sprinkler system components at the storage warehouse,” the report said.
Hoadley said the company disputes some of the chemical board’s findings, but would not elaborate.
“BioLab has a strong track record of working constructively with regulatory agencies and will continue to cooperate with the CSB’s ongoing investigation, although we disagree with many of CSB’s statements,” Hoadley said.
“The health and safety of the communities within which we operate is a top priority, and we worked collaboratively with first responders and local, state, and federal authorities to complete the emergency response operation in October 2024,” he said.
Has BioLab been penalized for the fire?
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late March issued citations for four “serious” violations and two “other-than-serious violations” related to employees’ exposure to toxic chemicals and exposure to respiratory and skin hazards during the fire. Those came with a $61,473 penalty.
The violations included employee exposure to toxic chemicals and fire hazards, inhalation hazards, skin hazards and failure to ensure employees used protective gear and maintain medical records.
BioLab initially contested the findings but recently withdrew the objection, a U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson told Healthbeat.
What is being done to track any long-term health effects of the fire?
At least two projects are underway to track how the fire affected residents.
A collaboration between Morehouse School of Medicine researcher James Washington and nonprofit Community Action Now! is focused on tracking the impacts using a community survey.
Rockdale resident Iffat Walker, executive director of Community Action Now!, said the survey queries residents about health and other impacts they experienced in six counties: DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry, Newton, Rockdale, and Walton.
The survey has collected nearly 400 responses with a goal of 9,000, Washington said.
This summer, they plan to hire college students and interns to visit high-traffic areas like shopping centers, parks, and churches to collect more responses, Washington said.
The project also includes in-depth focus groups to learn more about people’s experiences of the fire and to take a closer look at their medical status since then.
“We want to make sure that the community has what they need to fully recover,” Walker said.
A second study, based at Georgia Tech, is focused on which chemicals were released into the air during the fire. That study is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Principal investigator Greg Lewis told Healthbeat he plans to submit an initial paper this summer. Some of the results will be published publicly, according to a description of the project.
Where do lawsuits against BioLab stand?
At least two lawsuits against BioLab are pending in federal court.
One was filed by Rockdale County and asks the court to order BioLab to pay damages and civil penalties under the Clean Air Act and to close the Conyers plant. The other is a class-action lawsuit that includes local residents and businesses.
Residents have complained that the county has not been transparent in its handling of BioLab. In a December commission meeting, then-Chairman Oz Nesbitt tried to stifle public comment on BioLab because of the pending lawsuit.
“It’s not just a BioLab problem,” Reece said. “We have other manufacturing companies around that this is a giant neon sign to say, ‘Hey, you can get away with anything in Conyers.’”
“If we don’t have that buy-in and that collective thought process from our elected officials, then it’s hard for us as a community, no matter what we do, to make change happen,” Reece said.
Rebecca Grapevine is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org.
