NORTH SMITHFIELD — There’s a $21-million proposal on the special referendum ballot next Tuesday that supporters say will help bring the town together.

Well, at least its bathrooms.

The proposal is for a bond issue that will help pay to expand the town’s sewer system, linking the existing separate districts while at the same time providing new service to neighborhoods that have been plagued by failing septic systems and cesspools, said Sewer Commission Chairwoman Linda Jean Briggs.

It is one of three questions on the ballot Tuesday, along with one on a $12-million library bond and a proposal to raise to $10,000 the value of a project that must go out to competitive bidding.

The town does not have its own sewage treatment plant. Its sewage is piped to the regional wastewater treatment plant in Woonsocket. That facility also treats sewage from Woonsocket and Blackstone, Mass. The three municipalities share costs based of how much sewage they send there.

Though the bond needs town-wide voter approval, the financial impact will be limited to the areas where the sewer lines are put in, Briggs said. The payments on the $21-million bond will be divided among the property owners in the areas that get the new sewer lines. Residents who live outside the affected areas would pay nothing.

Currently, the town has four sewer districts, built at different times with different bonds. There’s the Union Village and Mendon Road lines on the town’s eastern edge; School Street in the southern part of Slatersville; and Ironstone, centered roughly on the intersection of North Main Street and Victory Highway.

The areas that will get sewers by the proposed bond would fill in gaps between those existing districts. If approved, a new line would be run along St. Paul Street and to the Waterford section, along the existing Mendon Road service area.

On the town’s northern border, new lines would be put in the Willerval/Tanglewood area. That would bump up with the St. Paul Street line and the existing School Street line. Also in the Slatersville section, a new line on Greene Street would serve a neighborhood with some seriously troubled septic systems and help link the Ironstone and School Street networks.

Briggs said the bond makes sense for people in those new areas because without the new lines, many could be faced with expensive septic system repair or replacement bills.

“The next time you enter you bathroom to indulge in a long soak in the tub, think of the family across the street who must limit their shower to no more than two minutes,” Briggs said.

Town Administrator Robert B. Lowe said the bond would be the first expansion of the town’s sewer system in 15 years. He said the locations have been chosen to put sewer lines in already developed areas.

“This project will fill in some of the more populated areas and does not expand into the rural areas of town,” Lowe said.

“Without this expansion, business development will be stagnant and the homeowners will be faced with paying for future improvements,” he added.

The bond has attracted support from both the business and environmental communities in town. The Industrial Development Commission has endorsed the bond because it will provide sewer service to the Branch Village District, an area the town has been trying to develop as a business park. It would also create more business opportunities in the Slatersville commercial area, they said.

The Conservation Commission has called for the bond passage because by adding sewers to areas with failing sewage treatment systems, it would protect groundwater supplies and water quality in the Branch and Blackstone rivers.

Failed septic systems are “extremely harmful to the groundwater and surface water resources within North Smithfield,” Conservation Commission member Donald P. Gagnon said.

A majority of town residents get their drinking water from private wells, he said, and hooking homes with failing systems to the sewer system will protect those wells.

“One of the most vital resources that North Smithfield has is its extensive groundwater and surface water resources and recharge systems,” Gagnon said. “Any measures we can take to ensure an adequate supply of untainted water to our residents today and for coming generations is an opportunity that must not be squandered.”

jhill@projo.com