DURHAM - Concerned about a "horrible smell" that has recurred for decades on Third Fork Creek, 15 Durham residents and city and state officials paid a call on the Brenntag chemical plant Thursday afternoon.

They went expecting a tour of the chemical distributor's plant. That did not work out, because of "miscommunication," but they did get Brenntag President Gil D. Steadman's assurance that, if his company is the odor's source, it will take action.

"I'm committing to you, as a good corporate citizen, we're going to do everything we can to identify if we are a cause," Steadman said, "and if we are, we will resolve it."

Steadman also said that the group was welcome to arrange tours at another time, and that he would attend a City Council work session in August, at which City Councilman Howard Clement invited the group to present its issues.

"I don't want to see this situation put off any longer," Clement said, after hearing that the smell problem has been going on for 20 years. "That is traumatic."

Clement visited Brenntag along with personnel from city and state environmental departments, local scientists and nonprofit groups, and residents of the offended neighborhood.

Before going to Brenntag, the officials met with residents of the McDougald Terrace public housing apartment complex about the problem.

'Worse than death'

The section of Third Fork Creek where the odor occurs is in Burton Park. The park is near McDougald Terrace, off Lawson Street between the campuses of N.C. Central University and Durham Technical Community College. Wisdom Pharaoh, president of the McDougald Terrace residents council, has described the smell as "worse than death."

Pharaoh and the nonprofit Durham CAN (Congregations, Associations and Neighborhoods) investigated the odor for 18 months before calling a public meeting about it in June to let residents tell environmental officials about it and pressure them to act.

Brenntag's site, at 2000 E. Pettigrew St., previously occupied by the SouthChem company, has a history of spills, leaks and accidents, including a fire in the 1980s that forced McDougald Terrace residents to evacuate.

John Cox of Durham's stormwater division said that the site has been used industrially for more than 100 years, and that underground "legacy contamination" from long ago could also be a contamination source.

Hope Taylor, director of Clean Water North Carolina, said it's likely there are several problems with the creek, which has depleted oxygen levels and other evidence of pollution. Those probably don't cause the smell, though.

"There are complex issues here," Taylor said.