S.B. 156

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EMINENT DOMAIN AMENDMENTS
2 1997 GENERAL SESSION
3 STATE OF UTAH
4 Sponsor: Mike Dmitrich
5 AN ACT RELATING TO THE JUDICIAL CODE; EXPANDING THE EMINENT DOMAIN
6 STATUTE TO INCLUDE DEPOSITS OF OIL, GAS, AND HYDROCARBONS, AS WELL
7 AS GEOTHERMAL STEAM.
8 This act affects sections of Utah Code Annotated 1953 as follows:
9 AMENDS:
10 78-34-1, as last amended by Chapter 164, Laws of Utah 1981
11 Be it enacted by the Legislature of the state of Utah:
12 Section 1. Section 78-34-1 is amended to read:
13 78-34-1. Uses for which right may be exercised.
14 Subject to the provisions of this chapter, the right of eminent domain may be exercised in
15 behalf of the following public uses:
16 (1) All public uses authorized by the Government of the United States.
17 (2) Public buildings and grounds for the use of the state, and all other public uses
18 authorized by the Legislature.
19 (3) Public buildings and grounds for the use of any county, city or incorporated town, or
20 board of education; reservoirs, canals, aqueducts, flumes, ditches, or pipes for conducting water
21 for the use of the inhabitants of any county or city or incorporated town, or for the draining of any
22 county, city or incorporated town; the raising of the banks of streams, removing obstructions
23 therefrom, and widening, deepening or straightening their channels; roads, streets and alleys; and
24 all other public uses for the benefit of any county, city or incorporated town, or the inhabitants
25 thereof.
26 (4) Wharves, docks, piers, chutes, booms, ferries, bridges, toll roads, byroads, plank and
27 turnpike roads, roads for transportation by traction engines or road locomotives, roads for logging

1 or lumbering purposes, and railroads and street railways for public transportation.
2 (5) Reservoirs, dams, watergates, canals, ditches, flumes, tunnels, aqueducts and pipes for
3 the supplying of persons, mines, mills, smelters or other works for the reduction of ores, with
4 water for domestic or other uses, or for irrigation purposes, or for the draining and reclaiming of
5 lands, or for the floating of logs and lumber on streams not navigable, or for solar evaporation
6 ponds and other facilities for the recovery of minerals in solution.
7 (6) Roads, railroads, tramways, tunnels, ditches, flumes, pipes and dumping places to
8 facilitate the milling, smelting or other reduction of ores, or the working of mines, quarries, coal
9 mines [or], mineral deposits including deposits of oil, gas, and hydrocarbons, minerals in solution,
10 and geothermal steam; outlets, natural or otherwise, for the deposit or conduct of tailings, refuse
11 or water from mills, smelters or other works for the reduction of ores, or from mines, quarries, coal
12 mines or mineral deposits including deposits of oil, gas, and hydrocarbons, minerals in solution,
13 and geothermal steam; mill dams; gas, oil or coal pipelines, tanks or reservoirs, including any
14 subsurface stratum or formation in any land for the underground storage of natural gas, and in
15 connection therewith such other interests in property as may be required adequately to examine,
16 prepare, maintain, and operate such underground natural gas storage facilities; and solar
17 evaporation ponds and other facilities for the recovery of minerals in solution; also any occupancy
18 in common by the owners or possessors of different mines, quarries, coal mines, mineral deposits,
19 mills, smelters, or other places for the reduction of ores, or any place for the flow, deposit or
20 conduct of tailings or refuse matter.
21 (7) Byroads leading from highways to residences and farms.
22 (8) Telegraph, telephone, electric light and electric power lines, and sites for electric light
23 and power plants.
24 (9) Sewerage of any city or town, or of any settlement of not less than ten families, or of
25 any public building belonging to the state, or of any college or university.
26 (10) Canals, reservoirs, dams, ditches, flumes, aqueducts and pipes for supplying and
27 storing water for the operation of machinery for the purpose of generating and transmitting
28 electricity for power, light or heat.
29 (11) Cemeteries and public parks.
30 (12) Pipe lines for the purpose of conducting any and all liquids connected with the
31 manufacture of beet sugar.

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1 (13) Sites for mills, smelters or other works for the reduction of ores and necessary to the
2 successful operation thereof, including the right to take lands for the discharge and natural
3 distribution of smoke, fumes and dust therefrom, produced by the operation of such works;
4 provided, that the powers granted by this subdivision shall not be exercised in any county where
5 the population exceeds twenty thousand, or within one mile of the limits of any city or
6 incorporated town; nor unless the proposed condemner has the right to operate by purchase, option
7 to purchase or easement, at least seventy-five per cent in value of land acreage owned by persons
8 or corporations situated within a radius of four miles from the mill, smelter or other works for the
9 reduction of ores; nor beyond the limits of said four-mile radius; nor as to lands covered by
10 contracts, easements or agreements existing between the condemner and the owner of land within
11 said limit and providing for the operation of such mill, smelter or other works for the reduction of
12 ores; nor until an action shall have been commenced to restrain the operation of such mill, smelter
13 or other works for the reduction of ores.




Legislative Review Note
as of 1-28-97 4:28 PM

A limited legal review of this bill raises no obvious constitutional or statutory concerns.

Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel

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