Sitting anxiously in her Conyers home, Sandra Stephens-Jordan called the office of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp one day in November. She called again the next day and once more the following week.
Each time, Stephens-Jordan said she asked a staffer if there was anything the governor could do to help her community in the aftermath of a chemical fire that had erupted and sent up a toxic cloud 4 miles from her home. She wanted to speak up for herself and others who were suffering from health complications after the Sept. 29 blaze at a BioLab plant.
Credit: John Spink/AJC
Credit: John Spink/AJC
Stephens-Jordan, 55, said she was told she could meet with Kemp if she wrote him a letter. She said she was later hospitalized and never got around to it.
In the days after the fire, Stephens-Jordan and other residents across Rockdale County watched Kemp speak publicly about the state’s massive response to Hurricane Helene.
But they only heard the governor make a passing mention of the BioLab crisis — an event that shut down I-20 and led to the evacuation of 17,000 people. The fire also resulted in more than 1,000 hospital emergency room or urgent care visits by residents of 25 Georgia counties.
“It’s like it didn’t matter,” Stephens-Jordan said of how Kemp treated the crisis. “That’s a major thing. That’s a chemical fire.”
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Community organizers in Rockdale County say dozens of residents called the governor’s office asking for help after the fire, with some demanding that he declare a state of emergency as he did for Helene and again for this month’s snowstorm.
Other politicians also called for action in response to the fire. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock joined U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson in demanding answers from the CEO of BioLab’s parent company. Johnson, whose district includes Conyers, also led several members of the Georgia congressional delegation in calling on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to more forcefully regulate the reactive chemicals at the heart of the crisis in Rockdale.
Kemp’s press secretary, Garrison Douglas, said the governor was unavailable for an interview for this story.
Douglas said Rockdale already was under a state of emergency at the time of the fire; Kemp had declared one for the entire state in advance of Helene.
“Declaring a separate state of emergency would not have unlocked any additional resources than what was being provided,” Douglas said in an email.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Douglas also cited a social media post from Kemp directing residents to a link where they could watch for updates and a news conference led by Kemp that lasted more than 40 minutes.
The news briefing was focused almost entirely on the state’s response to Helene. After talking for roughly 14 minutes about the hurricane, the governor said: “In closing, I just want to give a quick BioLab update.”
Kemp then said the state’s Environmental Protection Division was receiving updates from local, state and federal partners responding to the fire and chemical plume. He added that the state Department of Public Health was coordinating with the EPA and the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, or GEMA.
“We’ll continue to monitor air quality levels as weather patterns change throughout the Atlanta metro area,” Kemp said.
He encouraged people to “pay attention to their local media outlets” and any notices put out by GEMA, the public health department, the EPA or local officials.
But those efforts weren’t enough to satisfy some Rockdale residents.
“I find it very disappointing that we had an environmental emergency like we had, and we really did not get a statement or a visit from the governor,” said Larry Cox, a Rockdale County school board member. “That emotional support could have meant a lot.”
Kemp’s critics in Rockdale acknowledge that Hurricane Helene was a terrible storm, and it struck Georgia only two days before the BioLab fire. In Georgia, Helene led to at least 33 deaths and more than 1 million power outages, along with serious flooding and other damage in vast swathes of the state.
Even so, many residents of Rockdale see a stark imbalance in Kemp’s reaction to the two emergencies.
“I think it was a political move on his part to basically ignore the BioLab fire,” said Cheryl Garcia, an outspoken advocate for Rockdale County residents, noting that the county is a Democratic Party stronghold.
Just over 73% of the majority-Black county’s votes went to Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election. In the 2022 gubernatorial contest, nearly 71% of the county’s voters picked Democrat Stacey Abrams over Kemp, a Republican.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent a list of questions to Kemp’s office, including one about whether Rockdale’s politics influenced his responses to the fire. The spokesperson replied with a short statement that did not address that question.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Christina H. Fuller, an associate professor at the University of Georgia who researches air pollution and environmental health, said it is well-documented that communities of color have worse environmental quality and more industrial facilities than majority-white communities.
Research also shows that people of color receive a less favorable response than those in other areas when lodging environmental complaints, she said.
“So I’m not surprised to hear that this is a concern for people,” Fuller said.
Fuller said the BioLab situation reminds her of the federal government’s failed response to Hurricane Katrina, which disproportionately harmed communities of color in New Orleans. It’s also similar, she said, to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where residents were ignored.
Paul Glaze, who started the Shutdown BioLab Coalition, said he doesn’t think the governor’s response to Rockdale stems from any negative feelings about residents. But every time leaders neglect a “marginalized” community, he said, it becomes harder to convince the public that people are being treated fairly.
“It’s incumbent upon the state, and especially white members of the state, to do the right thing,” Glaze said.
Cox, who once led Rockdale County’s Republican Party but declared himself an independent in 2022, is a vice president of Dan-kel Concrete Cutting, which had operated for 10 years across the street from the BioLab plant. After the fire, Cox scrambled to move Dan-kel’s operations twice, ultimately finding a permanent space in Newton County, to get away from BioLab.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Cox and other residents note that the Sept. 29 event was at least the fourth significant fire or chemical release from BioLab in Rockdale over the past 20 years.
BioLab manufactures chlorinating agents used in pools and hot tubs. In the days after the blaze, the EPA monitored the air quality for chlorine gas and hydrochloric acid and found unsafe levels of both for about 20 days near the BioLab site.
State Rep. Rhonda Taylor, a Democrat from Conyers, said she stayed focused on making sure residents’ needs were met during the ordeal.
Taylor said that Oz Nesbitt Sr., then chairman of Rockdale’s Board of Commissioners, told her and other legislators during a meeting that Kemp’s office had been in communication with the board during the fire’s aftermath. Rockdale County officials told the lawmakers that they did not ask for state help because the county had its own emergency plan in place, Taylor said.
Nesbitt could not be reached for comment.
Rusi Patel, general counsel for the Georgia Municipal Association, said the powers granted to the governor during the state of emergency for Helene could also have been used to address the BioLab incident, even if Rockdale officials did not request additional aid.
“It doesn’t really matter what the locals say or do with an emergency because the governor’s powers are always going to be plenary,” Patel said. “So the governor can do what he or she wants when it comes to an emergency, above and beyond what any local government could ever do.”
On the day after the fire, authorities lifted a shelter-in-place order that evening only to restore it at 4 a.m. the next morning, with a vague directive to stay indoors “if the cloud moves over your vicinity.”
“It was very apparent,” Cox said, “that the locals did not have it under control.”
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