BioLab is back. It’s almost fully staffed and built for the future, according to Don Brunett, plant manager. The grand opening of the plant was celebrated with a ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday.

Ninety-five of the 99 employees have been hired and have spent the last five months in training for the plant that produces a chlorine-based sanitizer that kills microorganisms, including bacteria. It prevents algae growth, keeps water clean and protects pool equipment.

Seventeen months ago at the groundbreaking ceremony, Brunett said getting the plant rebuilt and back on line was personal for him because it signified putting people back to work.

Michael Sload, CEO of KIK, parent company of BioLab, said that the company not only supplies retail, but also 1,500 family-owned businesses.

BioLab was directly in the path of Laura’s 150-mph-plus winds in August 2020. Damage to the facility resulted in chemical decomposition and a fire that completely destroyed the plant.

The loss of BioLab, which is among the three top national pool product producers, and a rise in demand for pool supplies because of pandemic stay-at-home mandates made pool products hard to get across the U.S.

Brunett said the new plant includes a control room shelter designed to resist 170 mph winds where key staff will ride out the next extreme weather, and that is just one of the more resilient details factored into the new design.

“I could not be more proud of the work performed by our reconstruction team, ‘’ said Stephen Jackson, BioLab CFO of KIK Consumer Products. “The design required 100,000 hours of engineering work, performed by 250 engineers. The construction was performed by over 800 skilled workers who poured over 5,000 cubic yards of concrete, erected over 5 million pounds of structural steel, installed 8 miles of pipe and over 80 miles of cables and wiring.”

Planning, demolishing the old and building the new have not been without challenges. In particular were supply chain issues and inflated pricing due to those issues, according to Jeff Schmitt, COO of KIK. Several times in the presentation, company officials applauded Schmitt’s commitment to the project that  averaged 70 to 80 hour work weeks away from home.

Metals and exotic metals, necessary for such an operation because of corrosion resistance, increased in cost at least 10 percent and sometimes more, according to Schmitt. The original estimate for the facility was around $150 million. That cost rose to $250 million.

“Something as simple as a small transformer required a 32 week delivery window,” he said.

In addition to those challenges, China threatened to dump its government subsidized product into the U.S. market. KIK and BioLab executives thanked Congressman Clay Higgins and Senator Bill Cassidy for their work in Washington to ensure that the plant and more importantly, BioLab jobs stayed in Westlake. They asked the administration to take a second look at the circumstances and “don’t open it wide for China.”

“We knew this plant was coming back up. We knew it was going to employ 99 people here, supporting 99 families.”