The EPA proposal, unveiled in February, would prevent several safety requirements approved under the Biden administration from taking effect next year. Among the changes, it would eliminate an option for residents to directly request detailed risk management information from facilities, pull back requirements for facilities to invest in safer chemical storage technology, and unwind mandates for independent third-party audits.

The rollback comes as communities around the BioLab site are still contending with the aftermath of the 2024 fire. Across the road from the facility, Chris Lovejoy owns a worksite where chemical-laced smoke forced him and his team to abandon the property. Discoloration still marks the building's siding, and video shows smoke settling on the property and fading paint where it made contact.

"I guess we're just guinea pigs and they'll see what happens," Lovejoy said. He added that some employees have sought treatment and undergone surgeries for health problems they believe are linked to the smoke. "You just keep doing it. Go to the doctor and let him keep taking chest x-rays, knowing that one of these times you're probably going to walk in there and go alright, we've got a problem."

New research from Georgia Tech professor Greg Huey, who studies airborne chemicals, sheds light on the scale of the incident. His team estimated that BioLab stored the equivalent of roughly 45 tankers of chlorine. Huey noted that definitive health impacts remain difficult to pin down.

"A lot of people ask me after the BioLab incident, what are the health impacts?" Huey said. "We don't expose people to levels of halogens and do the tests, so it's almost impossible to know."

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found that the site had nearly twice the amount of reactive material it had reported to Rockdale County for permitting purposes. The board also determined that the reactive chemicals stored at BioLab were not covered by federal rules requiring large chemical inventories to maintain risk management plans — documents that help local communities and emergency officials understand what a worst-case accident could look like. The board recommended expanding the rules to include facilities like BioLab.

Attorney Alan Holcomb, who represents two Rockdale County sheriff's deputies who rushed toward the fire without knowing what was in the smoke, condemned the proposed rollback.

"Rolling back the rule changes is absurd in this situation," Holcomb said. "Our clients didn't know what was in the smoke. They didn't know how bad it was." He said the deputies were not given respiratory protection and have lost 40% to 50% of their lung function since the fire. "We're going to go back to a little bit of the Wild West where these companies can kind of do whatever they want internally."

BioLab is not the only facility where a major accident could put a large number of people at risk. A review of risk management plans for the 20 largest chemical storage sites in metro Atlanta shows that at least 880,000 people live or work within potential danger zones in the event of severe chemical accidents.

"It's a rabbit hole you don't really want to go down, but it's a scary thought," Lovejoy said.

Detailed information about accident management plans at facilities near the public is currently restricted. The EPA offers a separate tool, the Vulnerable Zone Indicator System, that allows people to check whether their homes fall within the boundaries of a potential danger zone.

"If I were living near one of these again, I'd be trying to figure out how to sell my house," Lovejoy said.

The EPA and BioLab's parent company did not respond to requests for comment.