OXFORD – The Oxford Water District would love to run water lines to the north end of town, but there’s just one problem:

“We can’t afford it,” Tom Kennison, a water district trustee, told selectmen Thursday.

However, he agreed to prepare another resident survey to gauge interest in a water line among the 100 or so homes in the area of Pottle, Coldwater Brook and Webber Brook roads and Staples, Birch and Morse avenues.

Nonprofit businesses that could benefit from a water line extension include Androscoggin Home Care & Health, Tri-County Mental Health, Boxberry School and the Oxford County Agricultural Association, which runs the Oxford County Fair off the Pottle Road.

Kennison said the district’s current debt load is about $800,000, the balance from a $1.5 million loan from Rural Development that paid for the drilling of a well and the extension of water service from Wal-Mart to the Norway town line in 1996.

Revenue from the Wal-Mart tax increment financing district pays about $28,000 a year of that debt, he said. But the closing of the Robinson Manufacturing Co. woolen mill in Oxford village hit the district hard, he added.

The mill paid $25,000 to $30,000 a year for water usage, and “with that being gone, that substantially cripples our ability to borrow money,” Kennison said. He said the loss in revenue is already being reflected in the first quarter, adding, “We may have to go to the (Public Utilities Commission) for a rate case” increase.

The residential charge for the district’s 300 customers is $51.20 a quarter, or $205 a year.

Kennison said it would cost $963,000 to extend water to the north end.

“For us as a small quasi-municipal body to borrow money, it’s just not feasible now,” he said.

He acknowledged the area needs public water, citing the high number of drilled points into the acquifer and a few cases where nitrates have shown up in dug wells.

Homeowners are having to drill deeper and pay $8,000 and up for a well, as the wells drain the acquifer.

But he said past efforts to win voter support for a water-line extension have been unsuccessful. Grant money may be available, but to qualify, the district needs to survey households to show a need based on income, he said.

“People don’t want to tell you how much money they make,” he said. Not many people returned the last survey that was sent out, but of those that did, most said they would welcome being able to hook up to a public water supply, he said.

Adrien Giroux, a resident who lives in the area, said he would hook up. He also noted that a public water supply would benefit the Oxford County Fair, where a harness racing track has been built and where horses are stabled year-round.

Horse manure can pose a big problem if it is allowed to accumulate and enter the aquifer, he said.