| Chapter 197 |
| 2021 -- H 5688 Enacted 07/08/2021 |
| A N A C T |
| RELATING TO COVENTRY SEWER AUTHORITY |
Introduced By: Representatives Serpa, Chippendale, Noret, Nardone, and Morgan |
| Date Introduced: February 24, 2021 |
| It is enacted by the General Assembly as follows: |
| SECTION 1. Section 1 of Chapter 330 of the Public Laws of 1997, as amended by Chapters |
| 119 and 140 of the Public Laws of 2006, and Chapters 286 and 300 of the Public Laws of 2019, is |
| hereby amended to read as follows: |
| Sec. 1. The town of Coventry is authorized and empowered in accordance with the |
| provisions of this act, to plan, lay out, construct, finance, operate, and maintain sewage works for |
| a part or the whole of its territory and for such purposes to take by eminent domain or otherwise |
| any lands, water rights, rights-of-way, or easements, public or private, in the town necessary for |
| accomplishing any purpose mentioned in this act. The sewage works may include sewers and sewer |
| service connections, pumping stations, sewage treatment works, sewage disposal works, and other |
| works essential to the proper collection and disposal of the sewage of the town. |
| As used in this act, unless the context otherwise requires |
| "Preliminary plans" shall mean engineering reports that shall conform to all applicable state |
| and federal guidelines and shall include detailed scope and area to be considered with |
| recommendations, preliminary and feasibility investigation, environmental assessment, cost |
| studies, economic comparisons of alternatives, and all application and pre-application work and |
| other work necessary or desirable before undertaking working plans. |
| "Working plans" shall mean final design plans of facilities, detailed construction drawings, |
| specifications, detailed estimate of cost of construction, and shall include all other engineering work |
| that may be required or advisable for actual construction of sewage works. |
| "Town" means the town of Coventry. |
| "Council" means the town council of the town of Coventry. |
| "Highways" means any state or other highway and any public street, alley, park, |
| parkway, driveway, bridge, or public place. |
| "Sewage works" means all constructions for collection, transportation, pumping, |
| treatment, and final disposal of sewage. |
| "Common sewer" means a sewer in which all abutters have equal rights of entrance and |
| use. |
| "Force main" means a sewer wherein sewage is moved by pressure. |
| "Sewer service connection" means a pipe to convey sewage and wastes from a building |
| to a common sewer. |
| "Sewage" shall mean wastewater, water-carried wastes, or a combination of them, |
| discharged into and conveyed by sewers or intended or customarily so discharged and conveyed. |
| Sewage may be further classified as follows: |
| "Sanitary sewage" shall mean the common wastewater and water-carried wastes from |
| human dwellings and from toilet and lavatory fixtures, kitchens, laundries, and similar facilities of |
| business and industrial buildings. In general, sanitary sewage shall not include storm water from |
| roofs, yards, streets, or open spaces; water from land surfaces or brooks; clean waste overflows |
| from springs, wells, or subsoil drainage; large volumes of clean water from air conditioning or other |
| cooling or condensing facilities; clean wastewater from hydraulically operated contrivances; and |
| those wastes included within the definition of "industrial wastes" next following. |
| "Industrial wastes" shall include the liquid or water-carried wastes of any industrial |
| process not clearly included within the definitions of sanitary sewage, storm water, cooling water, |
| or subsoil drainage herein. In general, wastewaters carrying any quantity of oils, grease, fats, |
| abrasives, chemicals, residues of manufacturing processes, wastes from commercial food |
| preserving or canning, from slaughterhouses or meat processing plants, and similar substances, |
| whether dissolved, in suspension, or mechanically carried by water, shall be considered as |
| industrial wastes. |
| "Storm water" shall include the runoff or discharge of rain and melted snow or other |
| clean water from roofs, surfaces of public or private lands, or elsewhere. For most purposes within |
| the scope of this act, storm water shall not include the flow of any natural brook, rivulet, or stream, |
| even if the source of the water is storm runoff from land or other property once that runoff has |
| entered the channel of the brook or natural watercourse. In general, storm water shall include only |
| water that is sufficiently clean and unpolluted to admit of being discharged, without treatment or |
| purification, into any natural open stream or watercourse without offense. |
| "Cooling water" shall include the clean wastewater from air conditioning, industrial |
| cooling, condensing, and similar apparatus and from hydraulically powered equipment. In general, |
| cooling water will include only water that is sufficiently clean and unpolluted to admit of being |
| discharged, without treatment or purification, into any natural open stream or watercourse without |
| offense. |
| "Seepage" or "subsoil drainage" shall include water from the soil percolating into |
| subsoil drains and through foundation walls, basement floors, or underground pipes or from similar |
| sources. |
| "Lateral sewer" means a sewer that does not receive the sewage from any other common |
| sewer. |
| "Submain sewer" means a sewer into which the sewage from two (2) or more lateral |
| sewers is discharged. |
| "Main sewer" means a sewer into which the sewage from two (2) or more submain |
| sewers is discharged. |
| "Land" means and includes any land, including building and other improvements |
| thereon, estate, riparial, or other right, easement, interest, or waterway. |
| The Town of Coventry may provide for the construction of sewers and for other sewage |
| works for the town and may raise funds therefor by borrowing or otherwise, and for that purpose |
| may issue bonds or notes of the town in accordance with the provisions hereinafter stated or under |
| other authority. |
| The town council shall provide that annual charges shall be made upon the owners of |
| the lands using the sewage works and that sewer assessments shall be made upon the owners of |
| lands for which the use of sewage works is available. The town of Coventry may charge the owners |
| of lands using the sewage works, monetary interest charges in excess of those interest charges |
| actually paid by the town for the funds it has borrowed for sewage works' purposes, up to a |
| maximum of one-half of one percent (.05%) of the interest charges paid by the town. The excess |
| interest charges shall only be used for administrative purposes. The town of Coventry shall not |
| assess upon the owners of land the costs associated with repaving the roadway upon completion of |
| any sewage works within the town. |
| The receipts from annual charges and sewer assessments shall be appropriated for and |
| applied to the payment of the charges and expenses incident to the planning, construction, |
| financing, operation, and maintenance of the sewage works, and to the payment of principal costs |
| for any bonds or notes issued for sewage works. Nothing in this act shall limit or affect the rights |
| or obligations of the town of Coventry, including obligations of the town acting by and through its |
| financial town meeting or its town council, to appropriate monies from its regular town tax to fund |
| its obligations under the intermunicipal agreement in wastewater services between the town of West |
| Warwick and the town of Coventry, as amended and restated from time to time, and the |
| Loan and Trust Agreement among the Rhode Island economic development corporation, |
| the town of Coventry and J.P. Morgan Trust Company, National Association dated as of December |
| 1, 2003, as amended from time to time. |
| SECTION 2. This act shall take effect upon passage. |
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