A project that has been in the works for years to get rid of a serious stench in Hernando County finally finally has the green light.

A smelly sewage treatment plant will soon be history, and the residents that live nearby are happy.

Betty Tvrdik has lived in her Spring Hill home for 22 years. She says her neighborhood is wonderful, but there's one problem: she lives right next door to a sewage treatment plant that stinks.

"It's bad," she said. "It is worse than a bunch of outhouses opened up and left."

"Just like a hog lot on the hottest day in the summer," said her neighbor, Marilyn Fletcher.

After years of planning to get rid of the smelly situation, county leaders finally voted to shut the plant on Osowaw Boulevard for good.

"Somebody is feeling sorry for us or somebody up above is looking over us," Tvrdik said. "I'll be glad to see it go."

The plan is to expand the wastewater treatment plant out at the airport. Then the sewage from the Osowaw plant can be sent there and the Osowaw plant can shut down.

County leaders say construction on the airport plant could start in the next few months and the Osowaw plant should be closed by the end of 2016.

The plan is to eventually demolish the Osowaw plant sometime in 2017.