OXFORD — Residents on Thursday night overwhelmingly passed a sewer ordinance regulating a multimillion dollar project, despite objections that the user fees are unfair.  

After over an hour of discussion that was at times loud and contentious with town officials at a special town meeting, residents voted to approve the Sewer Ordinance, which regulates everything from what types of waste can flow into the proposed state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility to the user fees residents will eventually pay. 

Passage wasn’t a straight shot. 

“The only reason I’m here is because I can’t afford my taxes as they are now and I don’t want to see them go up because some rich man on Route 26 wants a sewer,” one resident, who declined to be identified, told selectmen. 

The town is in the first stage of a two-phase project to install sewer pipes along Route 26, through its Tax Increment Financing Zone and finally onto King Street into residential neighborhoods. Those pipes would pump wastewater to a pump station at the Welchville Dam, and the sterilized water would flow out into the Little Androscoggin River.

The project is slated to be completed next spring.

The law governing that process is mandated by the federal government’s Rural Development office, which allocated $23.7 million in grants and loans to the town for the project.

It requires property owners within 150 feet of sewer lines to eventually connect to the system. Residents with failed septic systems will be required to connect immediately, while those with functioning systems would be permitted to continue using their private system until it fails. 

It also reassures the federal government that the town can pay back the $13.7 million loaned to pay for the project while cleaning up the environment. 

The law creates a fee structure wherein users can be charged for connecting to the system, a variable fee for their per-gallon personal water consumption and a standby fee for residents whose property is within 150 feet of the lines but are not yet hooked into the system. 

Residents, however, objected to the notion of being forced into the arrangement. 

“People don’t want to not have the option of putting their own system in. It’s not something you should have to decide for me,” Sally Harney told selectmen. 

Brent Bridges, vice president of Woodard and Curran, the engineering firm overseeing the project, estimated it would cost $425 for residents to hook up to the system. 

“One of the reasons this project has progressed is the financial viability of the town,” Bridges said. 

The standby fee, which aroused the most gall by residents, is a safeguard set periodically by the town to ensure it is able to pay its debt service on its loans, as well as operating and maintenance costs on the proposed sewer facility. 

The amount is driven by the number of users who sign up.

Bridges estimated 900 were needed to negate it, which would likely happen over five years.

Roberta Polland said she wanted to know the maximum amount residents could expect to see on their bill. 

“We have no idea how much it could be,” Polland said. 

Town Manager Michael Chammings said the fee was not meant to penalize residents, and taken with current revenue from sheltered taxes earmarked for infrastructure payments from businesses in the TIF zone, was likely to be insignificant. 

“We don’t want to force people on it but we do want to hit our objectives and pay back the government,” Chammings said.

At the suggestion the Oxford Casino could face stiff competition should another casino in Maine be allowed, Chammings said the town was in excellent financial shape, having carried over a surplus from last year and maintaining property tax rates.

The casino is seen by some as the driving force behind the growth and TIF taxes.

The sewer system and TIF zone, he said, will attract new businesses and residents, who in turn will help drive lower and lower sewer fees. 

“All new growth is just gravy on top,” he said. 

ccrosby@sunjournal.com