At their respective meetings last week, Oxford officials made decisions that saved sewer customers in the township and village more than $10,000.

Rather than making six years worth of bond debt payments, the township board and village council each voted to prepay in full their portions of an estimated $100 million Oakland-Macomb Interceptor Drain (OMID) project.

Township officials agreed to prepay $148,619 for the project, which will save their sewer customers $7,225 in bond issuance costs and interest.

Village officials decided to prepay $70,662, which will save its sewer customers a total of $3,435 over six years.

Sewage from township and village users flows through the OMID on its way to Detroit where it’s treated.

Approximately $88 million of the project will be spent on rehabilitating the Northeast Sewage Pumping Station in Detroit, which is the end point for the OMID, and the North Interceptor-East Arm, a seven-mile sewer that ranges in diameter from 8 to 13 feet and extends from the Northeast Sewage Pumping Station to Gratiot Ave.

“These wastewater facilities were originally constructed by the City of Detroit in the 1970s and serve over 850,000 residents and businesses, including your community, along with 22 other communities located in Macomb and Oakland counties. The present condition of the wastewater facilities requires significant rehabilitation and improvements,” wrote Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller and Jim Nash, Oakland County water resources commissioner, in a Sept. 26 letter.

The project’s remaining $12 million will be spent on the acquisition and assumption of the capital improvement and day-to-day maintenance responsibilities of these wastewater facilities.

By doing this, Miller and Nash believe the proposed rehabilitation “can be undertaken without the necessity of increasing the rates to accommodate the project.”

“In other words, we anticipate that there will be sufficient savings associated with maintenance, and the bonding for the project, that there should be no significant increases to (the) rates charged to your sewer customers,” Miller and Nash wrote.