About 5 a.m. on Sept. 29, 2024, an employee at the Bio-Lab chemical warehouse outside Atlanta heard a popping sound, a tell-tale sign that stored chemicals had come in contact with water and were reacting.
Within 90 minutes, the huge warehouse was ablaze, setting off explosions and the release of a black, toxic cloud that forced the evacuation of 17,000 people and the closure of hundreds of businesses in and around Conyers, Georgia.
Verlan Fire Insurance Co., a subsidiary of Hanover Insurance Group, paid a $20 million claim brought by Diversitech, an air-conditioning manufacturer and supplier that had an operation about a mile from the Bio-Lab site and which was damaged by the soot and debris. Now, Verlan has filed a subrogation lawsuit in federal court against Bio-Lab and its parent company, seeking recovery of the paid indemnity and the HVAC firm’s $100,000 deductible.
“This type of fire, explosion, and toxic chemical plume does not occur without Defendants’ negligence,” reads the Verlan complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in North Georgia.
Bio-Lab and its parent and affiliated companies, KIK International and KIK Consumer Products, which produced swimming-pool chemicals, have not yet filed an answer to the suit, which is one of multiple civil actions filed by residents, businesses and by Rockdale County, Georgia, where the warehouse was built.
The complaint, filed by Verlan attorneys with the Fox, Chandler, Hicks, McKinnon & Cassert law firm, paints a grim picture of Bio-Lab’s operations, storage practices, and alleged negligence in fire-suppression systems, and the suit may provide guideposts to other high-risk manufacturers and insurers on safe operations:
The Conyers warehouse, built in 1973 with an addition in 2019, has a history of fires, including a 2004 fire that injured several people and sent a toxic plume over the area; a 2016 fire in a storage shed; a 2020 chemical reaction and fire that closed highways in the county; a trailer fire four days later that reportedly released toxins. Another Bio-Lab facility in Westlake, Louisiana, in 2020 caught fire when rain from Hurricane Laura reacted with chemicals, the suit alleges.
The 275,000-square-foot facility stored chlorinating and sanitizing agents, including trichloroisocynuric acid (TCCA), compounds that are highly reactive when exposed to water. The reaction with a limited amount of water can cause fires and the release of toxic fumes, the lawsuit notes. The warehouse stored almost 14 million pounds of reactive oxiders – twice as much as Bio-Lab had told authorities would be stored there, the suit contends. Almost 3 million pounds were kept outside a firewall-protected area, investigations found.
Despite the huge quantities of water-reactive chemicals, the warehouse did not have an adequate fire-protection system, nor did it conform to hazardous materials standards. “At all relevant times, Defendants knew of the amount of dangerous and toxic chemicals at the Conyers Plant and failed to take adequate precautions to ensure these chemicals were handled and stored safely and to prevent dangerous chemical reactions,” the complaint reads.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in April of this year fined the chemical firms $61,473 for serious safety violations related to the fire. An investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is continuing, but a preliminary final report can be seen here.
Photo: The fire at the Bio-Lab facility in Conyers. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
Related: Cleanup Begins After Chemical Plant Forced Evacuations Near Atlanta
Georgia County to Sue Bio-Lab Over Fire
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