WASHINGTONVILLE -- Dwayne Brady can barely stand to take a bath because of the smell of sulfur in his water.

While the resident of 44 Water St. said the smell arose after U.S. Gypsum drilled test wells for their new $200 million plant in Washingtonville, Michael Brownell, chief of water resources management for the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, said it is unlikely to be related to the drilling.

Brownell and other officials involved in the development of the plant spoke to residents Thursday during a meeting about the company's request to dig a well more than 700 feet deep.

"This formation naturally has sulfur in it," Brownell said.

That revelation didn't exactly make residents feel any better.

Kathy Brown, of 19 Church St., said she used to change her water filter twice a year and now changes it every two weeks because of sulfur. "Every time they do something out there, I have to change a filter," she said.

Of the 30 residents attending, about half a dozen raised their hands indicating a sulfur problem that didn't exist before.

Walter Laidacker, who lives about four miles from Washingtonvile, said his chickens stopped drinking well water following the drilling. Brownell said he didn't believe drilling caused that because testing was over in 72 hours and the birds still refuse to drink the water.

U.S. Gypsum has said publicly that it wants to be a good neighbor and does not want to cause trouble for Laidacker or the rest of the area's residents.

The new wallboard-production facility, where up to 170 employees will begin working next month, has already received approval through PPL utilities to draw water from the Susquehanna River or Lake Chillisquaque. U.S. Gypsum wants to dig a well as another source because the plant will use up to 432,000 gallons of water per day in production, but they need to gauge the affect on the public first.

Brownell said U.S. Gypsum will be surveying people in the area about their wells, and project manager Chris Huron said people should "stay tuned" and that the company is "reaching out to folks to help give us information."

The commission called Thursday's meeting because it received three phone calls with concerns following the well tests. "We felt we should have heard more comments from the public," Brownell said.

After U.S. Gypsum conducted two recent aqua tests, it was determined that residential wells could drop by 10 to 20 feet, Brownell said. The company is preparing a mitigation plan on what it would do if wells were adversely affected.

Well water levels were also on the minds of residents.

Washingtonville resident Frank Dombroski said a couple of years ago when a pig farm was proposed, he was told "whoever drills the deepest, gets the water."