Bill Summary – FastDemocracy

                              STATE OF OKLAHOMA
                  1st Session of the 59th Legislature (2023)
  HOUSE BILL 2241                         By: Dobrinski
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                                 AS INTRODUCED
         An Act relating to roads, bridges and ferries;
            amending 69 O.S. 2021, Section 1403, which relates to
         public utilities on state highways; providing a cost
            exemption for relocation of certain natural gas
         systems; and providing an effective date.
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 BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA:
     SECTION 1.       AMENDATORY     69 O.S. 2021, Section 1403, is
 amended to read as follows:
     Section 1403.    A.   The location and removal of all telephone,
 telegraph, electric light and power transmission lines, poles, wires
 and conduits, water, sewers and all pipelines erected, constructed
 or in place upon, across or under any state highway shall be under
 the control and supervision of the Department of Transportation; and
 the location and removal of any facility placed under rights granted
 hereunder on county highways shall be under the jurisdiction of the
 particular board of county commissioners involved insofar as same
 affects the public travel or interferes with the construction and
 maintenance of such highway.
     Req. No. 5462                                                     Page 1
      B.   Prior to conducting the design survey for a proposed
  improvement, construction, or reconstruction of a highway, the
  authority having jurisdiction over the highway shall notify any
  person, firm, or corporation overseeing the operating or maintaining
  of any facility within the proposed project boundaries.    Upon
  receipt of notice or from a date specified in the notice, the
  person, firm, or corporation shall have ten (10) days to locate and
  mark the facilities.
      C.   Whenever the authority having jurisdiction over a particular
 highway plans an improvement or construction or reconstruction of
 the highway, and before the work is started, it shall serve a
 written notice upon the person, firm or corporation owning or
 maintaining any such facility, which notice shall contain a plan or
 chart indicating the places on the right-of-way where the facilities
 may be maintained.     The notice shall state the time when the work of
 improving the highway is proposed to commence, and a reasonable time
 shall be allowed to the owner of the facility to remove and relocate
 its property.   The effect of any change ordered by the public
 authority shall not be to exclude the facilities from the right-of-
 way of highways.
     D.   The removal and relocation of all the facilities located
 within the public right-of-way prior to the planned improvement,
 construction or reconstruction shall be made at the cost and expense
 of the owners, unless otherwise provided by law or order of the
     Req. No. 5462                                                     Page 2
  Department of Transportation, and in the event of the failure of
  such owners to remove the same at the time set out in the notice,
  they may be removed by the public authority and the cost of the
  removal collected from the owners, and the authority shall not be
  liable in any way to any person for the locating or relocating of
  the facilities at the places prescribed.   Any corporation or
  association, or the officers or agents of such corporation or
  association, or any other person who shall erect or maintain any
  such lines, poles, wires, conduits, pipelines, equipment or other
 facilities within the right-of-way of such highways in a manner not
 in complete accordance with the orders of the respective public
 authority shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.
     E.   The Department of Transportation may promulgate such rules
 as it may deem necessary for the planting of trees and shrubbery and
 parking along such state highways.
     F.   Rural water districts, nonprofit water corporations, and
 municipal public water systems in municipalities with a population
 of ten thousand (10,000) or less, according to the latest Federal
 Decennial Census, or their beneficial trusts and natural gas systems
 serving less than ten thousand (10,000) customers shall be exempt
 from the payment of the costs and expenses for the removal and
 relocation of natural gas, water and sewer pipelines and all such
 facilities constructed or in place in the public right-of-way when
 the removal and relocation of such facilities is necessary for the
     Req. No. 5462                                                     Page 3
  improvement, construction or reconstruction of any road or highway
  which is part of the state highway system or turnpike project as
  defined in subsection A of Section 501 and Section 1705 of this
  title.   Any costs and expenses, including any unpaid on July 1,
  1990, shall be paid by the public authority having jurisdiction over
  the particular road or highway.
     SECTION 2.   This act shall become effective November 1, 2023.
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     59-1-5462       JBH     12/19/22
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     Req. No. 5462                                                      Page 4