PARIS – Whether passenger vehicles such as pickup trucks should be banned from Hall Pond in winter will be the topic of a special public hearing Wednesday.

The hearing, which will be held at 6:30 p.m. at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris, is intended to resolve an apparent dispute between the town of Paris and Hebron Water Co. Although Hall Pond is in Paris, it also functions as the public water supply for Hebron.

Becky Orff, secretary to the commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said Thursday her agency is holding the hearing. It has taken up the Hall Pond issue as the result of a petition calling for it to be closed to “motor vehicles” in the winter, she said.

In this case, motor vehicles means trucks and cars, not all terrain vehicles or snowmobiles.

“After the public hearing, we’ll take all comments, and then we’ll go before our advisory council board,” Orff said. The 10-member board will likely meet in late September to discuss whether the pond access should be restricted.

Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has the authority to restrict access to the pond because the body of water is a public drinking supply, Orff said.

According to Paris Town Manager Steve McAllister, the Paris Board of Selectmen has said it would be willing to ban motor vehicles from Hall Pond in the winter. However, the town has asked for a recent letter from the Norway-Paris Fish and Game Club showing support for the move.

The letter has not been received, he said, although the board has seen a 5- or 6-year-old version of such a letter.

“It’s been our intent from the very beginning to protect that water source, but to do it realistically,” McAllister said Friday. The town would like to maintain some public access to the pond, he said.

While there’s no swimming there, McAllister said, “If someone wants to put a little canoe in and go trout fishing, we’ve never seen a problem with that.”

If Hebron Water Co. had its druthers, McAllister suggested, there would be no access to the pond, “which would be too bad for the citizens of Paris.”

According to Orff, the only issue at hand Wednesday is the restriction of motor vehicles on Hall Pond.

No copy of the petition was available because the staff member in charge of the matter was on vacation, Orff said.

Lewis Williams of the Hebron Water Co. could not be reached for comment. Nor could a representative for the Norway-Paris Fish and Game club.