CSB to Investigate Sept. 29 Chemical Fire at Georgia Facility
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has sent a team to investigate the chemical fire that began on Sunday at the Bio-Lab facility in Conyers, Georgia. As reported by the Associated Press and other news sources, about 17,000 people were evacuated due to the fire at the chemical plant and more than 90,000 others located east of Atlanta were advised to shelter in place. The fire has been extinguished, but the material at the facility was still smoldering as of today, Oct. 3.
The facility manufactures pool and spa chemicals that contain the chlorinating agent trichloroisocyanuric acid, or TCCA. CSB explains that TCCA is soluble and breaks down slowly when used in large bodies of water but warns that when the substance “comes into contact with small amounts of water and does not dissolve, it can undergo a chemical reaction that generates heat, causing the decomposition of TCCA, which produces toxic chlorine gas.”
Both state and federal agencies including EPA are monitoring air quality in the area for chlorine and related compounds, according to a press release issued yesterday by the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency. GEMA/HS states that “periodic increases in chlorine levels around the facility are expected” as workers at the site try to neutralize the product. “Some exceedances above the action level for chlorine” were detected around the Bio-Lab facility overnight into Oct. 2, the GEMA/HS press release notes. The action level for chlorine is 0.5 parts per million (ppm), which EPA describes as “conservative and protective of the most vulnerable populations, including children.”
CSB previously investigated the Georgia Bio-Lab facility in September 2020 following a release of hazardous chemicals, including chlorine, caused by a chemical reaction and decomposition. The agency says the incident exposed Bio-Lab personnel and firefighters to “dangerous fumes,” caused the evacuation of surrounding businesses, and led to a six-hour closure of a nearby interstate. The September 2020 investigation in Conyers, Georgia, was in conjunction with CSB’s investigation of the chemical fire and toxic gas release that occurred a month earlier at Bio-Lab’s Lake Charles facility in Westlake, Louisiana, following Hurricane Laura.
Further information is available in CSB’s press release.