Section 5-355. Condemnation proceedings  


Latest version.
  • a. It shall be lawful for the city
      to acquire by condemnation any real estate or any interest therein  that
      may  be necessary in order to acquire the sole and exclusive property in
      the source or sources of water supply,  which  may  be  needed  for  the
      supply  of  the  public waterworks of the city, and to wholly extinguish
      the water rights of any person or corporation therein, with the right to
      lay, relay, repair and maintain aqueducts, conduits and water pipes with
      the connections and fixtures on the lands of others, and, if  necessary,
      to  acquire  by  condemnation  lands  for  such purpose in any county or
      counties through which it may be necessary to pass  in  conducting  such
      waters  to  the  city. The city shall have the right to intercept and to
      direct the flow of water from lands of riparian owners, and from persons
      owning or interested in any water, and the right to prevent the flow  or
      drainage  of noxious or impure matters from the lands of others into its
      reservoirs or sources of supply.
        b. The city, however, shall not have power to acquire or to extinguish
      the property rights of any person or corporation  in  or  to  any  water
      rights   that   at  the  time  of  the  initiation  of  proceedings  for
      condemnation are in actual use for the supply of the waterworks  of  the
      people  of  any  other  city,  town  or village of the state, or for the
      supply and distribution of waters to the people thereof, or which in the
      opinion of the court on such proceedings may reasonably become necessary
      for such supply, or to take or use the water from any of the  canals  of
      the  state,  any canal reservoirs, or waters used exclusively as feeders
      for canals, or from any  of  the  streams  acquired  by  the  state  for
      supplying the canals with water.
        c.  The city shall not acquire by condemnation any property or factory
      in Putnam county which has been  used  for  twenty-five  years  for  the
      manufacture  of  food  products;  nor acquire by condemnation any lands,
      easements, streams or water, or water rights, on the east branch of  the
      Croton  river,  below  the village of Brewster in the town of Southeast,
      Putnam county, for the construction of any  reservoir,  in  which  water
      will  or  may  be impounded at a higher level than three hundred and ten
      feet above tide water at the city.