OXFORD — Selectmen have scheduled a special town meeting to ask voters to approve rules governing how residents will connect to a state-of-the-art sewer system currently under construction.

Selectmen set a tentative date of Sept. 4 for the vote on the Sewer Use Ordinance, which regulates the commercial and residential use of the system.

The 47-page ordinance would require residents whose properties abut the sewer pipes to connect to the lines, though the annual fee residents will pay remains uncertain.

The fee structure for all users includes a one-time base connection fee, plus a usage rate based on water consumption.

Engineers are still calculating the fee, which will be determined by an estimate of the number of households that fall under the projects’ scope. 

The ordinance also establishes a “standby fee” on undeveloped land adjacent but unconnected to the sewer system. According to the law, the fee “ensures that adequate sewer service will be available for that parcel when needed.” 

The standby fee will be half of the connection rate. 

Oxford is in the first of a two-phase, mulitmillion-dollar project to install a membrane treatment system, designed to meet an expected population and business surge.

Water pumped from miles of sewer lines passing through a business-advantageous Tax Increment Financing district along Route 26 will be forced through a series of filters before being sterilized by ultraviolet light and flowing into the Little Androscoggin River. 

Brent Bridges, vice president of Woodard and Curran, the engineering firm overseeing the design specifications of the project, told selectmen Thursday night that the wastewater treatment facility is on track to be completed next spring.

Residents with functioning septic tanks will be allowed to keep them until they fail, at which point they will be required to hook into the system. New, private septic tanks and other means of sewage disposal will not be allowed to be built where the public sewer is available.

The ordinance would require property owners within 150 feet of current or planned sewer lines to connect to the system at their expense within 90 days of official notice. 

The ordinance also establishes more stringent controls on the types of wastes industrial users can dump down the drain, requiring them to submit a special application, pay an additional fee, and closely monitor their discharge. 

The law proposed by the town distinguishes between light residential and commercial use, and heavy industry, which faces steeper restrictions.

For certain types of industries with output that could clog lines, a special filter substation may be required, which would be built at the user’s expense. 

Residents looking to have their home or other building connected must notify the town and open their residence to inspection. 

Fines for violating the ordinance, including not complying with the order to connect to the sewer lines, are $200 annually. All users’ fees will help pay down the town’s debt service and future projects, operations and maintenance on the sewer.