YORK COUNTY, SC – On Thursday, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control officials updated neighbors on a strong, mysterious odor that has been plaguing families along the state border.
Residents of both states complain about the smell near the state border between Union County and York County.
DHEC said he is not sure where the odor came from.
“We’ve been smelling it for more than a month, and it’s been getting progressively worse in the past few weeks,” said Union County resident Orly Boyle.
She described the smell as rotten eggs or leaking sewage.
“I am getting 10 to 15 calls, text messages, emails a day asking about this odor and what we are doing about it,” said South Carolina state senator Michael Johnson.
[ ALSO READ: North Carolina native Michael Regan confirmed as head of EPA ]
He and two other local lawmakers took concerns to DHEC earlier. They believe the smell may be coming from the New Indy Container Board plant in Catawba, South Carolina.
“They stopped making what you would call bleached paper, white paper, to basically make brown paper for cardboard,” said Senator Johnson.
The New Indy plant is more than 15 miles away from parts of Union County where residents are reporting the odor, so DHEC is not sure if it is coming from South Carolina to neighboring counties, but has ruled out several causes and will continue to investigate. Once the actual cause of the smell is determined, the agency will begin the problem correction process.
DHEC is examining the plant to see if it is the culprit.
In a statement, DHEC said it is working with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to investigate North Carolina’s wastewater treatment plants to find out if they may also be contributing to the smell.
They said the climate could also play a role, becoming stagnant and trapping pollution.
“At the moment, we don’t know what you’re feeling in the air,” said Boyle.
While the authorities try to find out what’s wrong, residents like Boyle are doing their best to keep the smell away by not opening the windows.