The Rockdale County Board of Commissioners held a meeting on Tuesday and among the topics that were discussed were calls for the shut down of the BioLab facility which is at the center of a chemical plume disaster that began back on September 29th.
Chairman Oz Nesbitt addressed the calls for the shutdown in a meeting where Sher’ree Kellogg, a seven-year resident in Conyers, said she was “flabbergasted at the history” of BioLab and its “neglect of soundness and safety.”
“To hear that this happened in 2004 to this magnitude, a couple other fires, the numerous amount of OSHA violations, I am concerned not only because they are still standing,” Kellogg added, according to 11Alive. “But why are they still standing? What checks and balances are required from the board to ensure that a company that has this kind of scorecard is, in fact, moved from the county before there’s an incident?”
“How do you determine that that line is enough and that it shouldn’t go a little further? Just so many questions that I have that are not answered,” Kellogg continued.
Nesbitt responded with a lengthy statement where he said that crews are still working to remove debris, and then chemicals are underneath the debris.
“Let me acknowledge that so many of your sentiments expressions this morning, the three of us certainly share all of them,” Nesbitt said. “The first thing that you stated was about shutting them down. I want you to hear your chairman say this: ‘Enough is enough.'”
“That has to be done in a very tedious, very methodical process so that we would reduce the possibility of continuing to have that plume, that monstrous, ugly, fearful plume that we saw looming over our county for the past three days,” he stated, adding that the main focus right now is public safety, health and welfare of the county.
“I’m not entering into the conversation about shutdown at this time, at this time. Listen to my words — at this time. At this time safety, safety, safety is our number one concern. As soon as I hear from the fire chief that this problem with the incident itself, the chemicals, the plume, Ground Zero is under complete control, once she gives me that green light, then we will enter into other conversations,” Nesbitt said.
“These last nine days, every morning, she’s come back home and told me the influx of people crowding the emergency room. Yes, there is a major concern,” he said. “Enough is enough. But right now, right at this moment, until I get that green light from the fire chief that says All is clear, I’m not going into another conversation until I get to make sure the county is safe.”
