Neighbors of a new church being built west of Lawrence are raising a stink about the plans that call for a sewage lagoon to be constructed nearby.

Heritage Baptist Church, 4340 W. Sixth St., is clearing ground for a 47,000-square-foot church on the southwest corner of North 1800 Road and East 800 Road, about three miles northwest of Lawrence. Nearby will be a 150-by-120-foot sewage lagoon.

Neighbors in the area of the new Heritage Baptist Church being built at North 1800 and East 800 roads are upset that plans call for a sewage lagoon to be constructed nearby. The Rev. Scott Hanks, minister at Heritage Baptist, at the site of the planned lagoon, said he doesn't blame the neighbors but the church has no other choice.

That’s got neighbors worried.

“I’m totally against a lagoon there,” said Gloria Schwarz, one of several nearby residents. “I don’t want the smell. Why can’t they put it well away from everybody and farther away from the road?”

The Rev. Scott Hanks, minister at Heritage Baptist, said he doesn’t blame the neighbors.

“We agree with them we didn’t want a sewage lagoon, either,” Hanks said. “We wish there was something else we could do.”

The church has worked closely with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to meet all state and local regulations for a sewage lagoon, Hanks said.

The only other choice the church had was to pay to build its own sewage to connect to a main line, and the nearest main line is nowhere close, Hanks said. The cost would have been so high that an estimate wasn’t calculated, he said.

“The good thing is Lawrence is expanding and eventually the city will be out here,” Hanks said.

The lagoon will be about 1,600 feet from Schwarz’s home, 1815 E. 758 Road. Other residents were reluctant to publicly express their displeasure when contacted by the Journal-World.

Not all the neighbors are fighting the lagoon. Patrick Budenbender, who lives 450 feet from the proposed lagoon, declined to comment, saying he is “just trying to be a good neighbor.” He signed a waiver saying he would go along with the lagoon construction.

Though construction of the church was common knowledge, neighbors said they did their own detective work to learn about the sewage lagoon. A neighbor started making inquiries after seeing ground being cleared west of the church construction site, Schwarz said.

A protest letter and petition with about 20 names of area residents was sent to Heritage Church and the Kansas Department of Health and Human Resources.

The lagoon will have to be moved back about 40 feet from its originally planned location, said Rance Walker, KDHE environmental engineer.

That’s because the proposal didn’t meet KDHE requirements that a lagoon be at least 500 feet from a nearby house even though that house is vacant, Walker said.

That’s little consolation to neighbors.

“Anyone who has ever lived in the vicinity can testify to the horrible, unhealthy, sickening stench emanating from the lagoon,” Schwarz said.

“There’s always going to be an odor or the potential for odor from raw sewage,” Walker said.

But smell from the lagoon won’t be constant and strong all the time, Walker predicted. The smell will be noticeable in the spring and fall when there are major temperature changes causing a biological process among the bacteria in the lagoon, Walker and other KDHE officials said.

The smell would last a few days at a time and be similar to smells the same process causes in creeks and farm ponds, Walker said.

Construction workers have not begun digging the lagoon. But land has been cleared for the project, which is located down a hill to the west of the church site.

In addition to the church building, Heritage also is building a shop for woodworking and vehicle maintenance, and eventually a school building. Church workers are handling the construction themselves, Hanks said.