Georgia Residents Left Behind After Toxic BioLab Fire

Maximilian Alvarez: Welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times Magazine and The Real News Network.

Today we’ve got another crucial installment of our ongoing series, ​“Sacrificed,” where we speak with people living, working and fighting for justice in America’s sacrifice zones. Sacrifice zones, broadly understood, are areas where people have been left to live in conditions that threaten life itself, from toxic industrial pollution to the deadly, intensifying effects of man-made climate change. 

In this episode, you’re going to hear from three folks living near Conyers, Georgia, and who have all been affected by the disastrous and frankly, nightmare-inducing chemical fire at the BioLab facility in Conyers, which is about a half hour outside of Atlanta. 

Hannah Loyd: The day of the fire, I actually had gotten up kind of early and was just looking on social media and saw people posting about how BioLab was on fire. 

My daughter, she’s three, she needed milk. I got in the car and I went to the gas station, but when I got to the stop sign, I looked up and I saw the cloud in front of me. 

I came back home, and I started having a lot of shortness of breath. I started feeling like there was mucus building up in my esophagus and in my throat. At that point, like I was able to look at my husband and like, kind of show him I needed help. But I couldn’t verbally tell him that I needed help. At that point, he had already called 911.

Two days after that, my daughter became affected, and she started showing signs of having basically what they consider a ​“chemical attack.” 

It’s been over two months now, of us having to go back and forth, because we’ve tried to leave a couple different times to get away, but every time we come back, we all get sick.

Christina O’Connor: I was smelling what was in the air. And I was tasting and feeling it in the house. I decided that I needed to evacuate. 

My eyes, by that point, were burning and itching. I could feel it. I could taste it. It’s just almost indescribable, this chemical burn.

It was very anxiety producing to wonder, okay, where do you go to escape this? Is it safe to go back home? Do I stay here? How do you run from a chemical plume? You don’t know which way the wind blows. 

It didn’t affect everyone, like they might have had some symptoms, but for some people, it affected them way worse.

Jeramie Julian: I was affected a week or so after the initial fire there. And I was overexposed, because I can’t smell, and it was dark outside, the morning that I was out there and it was just breathing this stuff in. It looked like a normal fog, but it obviously was the chemicals in the air. 

Eventually I wound up having to go to the emergency room from what felt like anaphylactic shock. I couldn’t even swallow, my throat was so raw. It felt like I had eaten some crushed glass.

I looked at my release form and it said ​“anxiety attack.” I couldn’t help but laugh. I went and found the doctor that we had just had this conversation with about all these side effects from all the chemicals in the atmosphere. Cardiac dysrhythmia is a side effect. He said, ​“oh, I’ll change it in the system.”

It’s almost like they didn’t want to admit it, or talk about it. 

Alvarez: No one should be subjected to this. And yet it feels like a recurring segment in American history, where we’re hearing these kinds of stories over and over again.

Every community is different, every source of contamination is different. But I’m sure everyone listening to you guys is hearing the same echoes that I am, of what folks in East Palestine, Ohio have told us over the past year and a half.

Some people are experiencing all kinds of symptoms. Some people appear to be fine. And that’s really played into a lot of the division that the company has helped sow in the town itself. You’re pitting people who feel fine against people who don’t, and then people who don’t feel fine are bullied by their neighbors, even, for faking it.

I hope and pray that through these constant catastrophes, we as a society can start to understand that human beings are different. For some people, Covid-19 was a small cold. For some people, it was the thing that killed them. 

What have you been told by government agencies, by the company itself? How are you and others in your community doing after this? Are people trying to put it in their rear view mirror? 

Loyd: They really aren’t talking about it much anymore in our local media that I’ve seen or heard. They talked about it for probably the first couple of weeks, maybe, and then they just quit talking about it.

It has gone back to business as usual, there’s nothing to see, everything’s okay. It’s not okay. We had to leave the area at least three times, three different weekends. Coming back each time, within the hour, I could personally tell a difference.

O’Connor: It’s just been hard to have to rebuild and start over. Your work is affected, so then your bills start piling up. Those chemicals are in your car, and you then have to drive around with a mask on. It’s insane. 

I talked to a lawyer, and they said, go rent a car. Well, I can’t do that because it’s expensive. How long would I have to rent a car for?

I’m just so tired of these companies putting profits over people. It’s not right. And so I’m honored to be a part of bringing awareness to this tragedy. It’s happening all over.

Julian: I’m in agreement. Thank you for the opportunity to bring awareness. 

I always try to look for the good in something, even if it’s bad. And that’s what this could turn into, is some way to stop companies like this from just bulldozing over the common people who are the ones really suffering.

Alvarez: We’re going up against Goliath here, and it’s going to take solidarity among working people who are on the front lines of this corporate malfeasance, this government malfeasance, this media silence. We need to band together and stick together and fight for one another.