Above photo: Jacques Ackerman and his wife Leigh Ackerman watch as an industrial fire burns at Chemtool Inc. on June 14, 2021, in Rockton, Illinois. Scott Olson / Getty Images.
It’s Not Just BioLab.
On average a major chemical accident occurred in the US roughly every four days since 2020. At least 57 were fatal.
Investigators have been busy at the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, the independent federal agency tasked with determining the root causes of major chemical accidents at industrial facilities.
In Georgia, fallout is continuing more than two weeks after a massive chemical fire erupted at the BioLab pool and spa supply facility in Conyers, just outside of Atlanta. The fire created a toxic plume of chlorine gas that forced 17,000 people from their homes just days after Hurricane Helene hit the state. In the suburban petrochemical corridor east of Houston, Texas, the Chemical Safety Board is investigating the toxic release of hydrogen sulfide at an oil refinery that left two contract workers dead and 35 others injured on October 10.
Both industrial chemical accidents made national headlines as nearby residents were put under shelter in place orders to avoid the toxic air outside. The accidents may seem like anomalies, but the United States is notorious for its lax regulation of toxic chemicals. Dangerous chemical accidents occur frequently and rarely receive attention beyond the local news.
The worst chemical accidents are typically investigated by the Chemical Safety Board. The agency, which was authorized in the 1990s by the Clean Air Act, operates with a mission to “drive chemical safety excellence” and a vision of “a nation free from chemical disasters.” The Chemical Safety Board is not a regulatory body and does not issue fines and fees, instead offering recommendations to companies and policy makers.
The Chemical Safety Board’s investigators focus only on what they call “major” chemical accidents that result in death, injury or massive property damage. From April 2020 to July 2024, the board investigated 421 “major” chemical incidents at various plants, warehouses and fossil fuel refineries. Of these, 57 incidents caused fatalities, 227 caused “serious bodily injury” and 197 caused “substantial property damage.”
According to the board’s data, a “major” chemical or petrochemical incident occurred on average in the U.S. roughly every four days since 2020. While releases of toxic emissions from chemical accidents are not tracked by the data, surrounding communities are often impacted by air and water pollution released during the accidents, especially when bad weather, operational errors or equipment failures cause petrochemical plants and infrastructure to burn off toxic gases, catch on fire or explode.
Included on the list are previous accidents at the BioLab facility in Georgia and another BioLab facility in Westlake, Louisiana, that caught fire when it was hit by Hurricane Laura in 2020, forcing authorities to close a portion of a nearby interstate highway for 28 hours and distracting from storm recovery. Similarly, in 2020, the Georgia BioLab facility released a toxic chlorine cloud, forcing authorities to close an interstate highway, close businesses and order residents to shelter in place.
Back in 2004, a huge fire at the same BioLab facility produced a large plume of harmful pollution that forced people in the immediate area to evacuate. The effects of the plume were felt up to 50 miles away, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Businesses and residents near BioLab in Georgia have filed lawsuits against the company over the impacts of the latest fire, and Georgia state lawmakers are calling for greater regulations of the chemicals stored at the facility, according to reports.
The most recent incidents at the BioLab facilities in Louisiana and Georgia involved the chemical TCCA, a chlorinating agent used in pools and hot tubs. TCCA is soluble in large bodies of water and breaks down slowly, but smaller amounts of water can cause the chemical to catch fire and explode.
Like the 2020 BioLab fire in Louisiana, the most recent incident also distracted first responders from hurricane recovery. The Chemical Safety Board once again dispatched its investigators, who had already recommended the company improve “oversight” of chemicals that could react with water after the previous accidents in Louisiana and Georgia. In statements to the media, BioLab has apologized to the community of Conyers and said it is working diligently with authorities to clean up after the most recent fire.
The chemical industry enjoys loose environmental regulation in Georgia and Louisiana thanks to the “business friendly” governments headed by Republicans. Anne Rolfes, director of the environmental group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, said her state is “dominated” by the petrochemical industry and there a no consequences for companies after dangerous accidents.
Rolfes pointed to Tyler Gray, a former lobbyist for an oil refinery and a fossil fuel industry group who was appointed by Louisiana’s climate change-denying Republican governor to lead the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, a regulator of the state’s expansive petrochemical industry.
“A former oil and gas lobbyist is actually in charge of the Department of Natural Resources — an agency that should hold industry accountable,” Rolfes said in an email. “This is what you get when you put the oil and chemical industry in charge of regulating themselves: fires, explosions and tragic accidents that kill people.”
The Chemical Safety Board is also investigating the fatal hydrogen sulfide release that killed two workers and injured dozens more at an oil refinery owned by the Mexican energy giant Pemex in Texas last week. The Houston Landing reports that Pemex failed to properly notify local authorities in the wake of the chemical leak, which delayed first responders and deprived the public of air quality monitoring data.
“This is a very serious incident that caused multiple fatalities and injuries and potentially put the surrounding community at risk,” said Steve Owens, a chairperson of the Chemical Safety Board, in a statement last week.
The Pemex refinery is located in Deer Park, a suburb of Houston where a car recently crashed into a natural gas liquids pipeline, causing an explosion and a tower of flames that burned for hours and damaged nearby homes. Residents of Deer Park are no stranger to shelter in place orders. Texas is the beating heart of the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry, and state environmental regulators are notorious for letting polluters get away with it.
Georgia congressional Democrats are calling for tougher regulation of TCCA and similar chemicals after the most recent BioLab fire, but federal data shows such accidents are common and rarely followed up with action from policy makers. Perhaps the sheer frequency of dangerous accidents is one reason the chemical industry spent more than $65 million lobbying Congress in 2023 alone.