Article III: Required Use of Public Sewer

§ 181-6 Unlawful disposal or discharge.

It shall be unlawful for any person to place or deposit or permit to be placed or deposited in any unsanitary manner on public or private property within the Town or in any area under the jurisdiction of said Town any human or animal excrement, garbage or other objectionable waste. This is not intended to restrict the approved spreading of manure, fertilizers or sludge in farming or animal husbandry operations.

It shall be unlawful to discharge to any natural outlet within the Town or in any area under the jurisdiction of said Town any wastewater or other polluted water, except where suitable treatment has been provided in accordance with subsequent provisions of this chapter and the requirements of the State of Maine.

Except as hereinafter provided, it shall be unlawful to construct or maintain any privy, privy vault, septic tank, cesspool or other facility intended or used for the disposal of wastewater.

§ 181-7 Connection to public sewer required.

The owner of any building used for human occupancy, employment, recreation or any other purposes, situated within the Town and abutting on any street, alley or right-of-way in which there is now located a public sanitary sewer, excluding force mains, is hereby required, at the owner's expense, to connect any plumbing facilities directly with the public sewer in accordance with the provisions of this chapter within 120 days after the date of notice by the Superintendent to do so.

The building owner may request, in writing to the Superintendent, deferral of this connection requirement on the basis of undue hardship if the building has an existing, properly operating, private wastewater disposal system, in which case the owner shall demonstrate the nature and degree of hardship. The need for the owner to pump to the public sewer shall not alone be considered a hardship.

If the building owner can prove, to the satisfaction of the Superintendent, that a suitable private wastewater disposal system is currently in use, the owner shall be exempt from connection for three years to the public sewer but shall be assessed a readiness-to-serve fee until connected. At the end of three years the owner shall be required to connect to the public sewer.

During construction of a public sewer, owners of unimproved lots and land abutting such sewer have the option of having a service stub brought to the edge of the roadway at Town expense, except as provided in Article IX, in which case the property owner will be assessed the readiness-to-serve fee.

The Town shall maintain a map depicting locations where public sanitary sewer is anticipated to be constructed within a five-year period ("sewer expansion areas"). Upon notification from the Superintendent that sewer service is available in any sewer expansion area, all existing commercial and multifamily structures in the sewer expansion area shall connect to the public sewer as set forth in Subsection A, unless exempted under Subsections B or C. Existing single-family residences in designated sewer expansion areas may, at the owner's election and expense, connect to the sewer, but shall not be required to do so except when an existing subsurface system requires replacement or expansion, or the residence is being expanded to include the addition of one or more bedrooms or an accessory dwelling unit. Connection under this subsection may be waived by the Superintendent only if the building is more than 2,000 feet from the sewer line or if connection would pose an undue hardship due to the building's location or other site features.

Any new building to be located within a sewer expansion area shall, at the owner's expense and as a condition of any building permit or plumbing permit, install a service pipe for the eventual connection of the building to the anticipated location of the sewer line within the public way. Installation of the service pipe will not be required if the Superintendent states, in writing, that such an installation is not advisable at the time of building construction. Any building plan, subdivision plan or site plan submitted for building(s) to be located in a sewer expansion area shall include on the plan the location of any service pipe to be installed in accordance with this section. Subdivisions shall further comply with the provisions of § 181-45. **Notwithstanding 1 M.R.S.A. § 302, this section shall be applicable to any proposed building, site plan or subdivision for which no building permit(s) has been issued as of April 13, 2021.