By: Madla S.B. No. 1494
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the powers of Bexar Metropolitan Water District.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Section 2, Chapter 306, Acts of the 49th
Legislature, Regular Session, 1945 (Article 8280-126, Vernon's
Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
Sec. 2. The District is hereby created as a governmental
agency, a body politic and corporate, and a municipal corporation,
vested with all the authority as such under the Constitution and
laws of the State of Texas; and shall have and be empowered to
exercise all the rights, privileges, functions, and powers of such
governmental agency and body politic and corporate as authorized or
implied by the provisions of Article 16, Section 59 of the
Constitution and as have been or may be conferred by General Law
upon conservation districts and as authorized or implied by the
provisions of this Act, for the purpose of controlling, conserving,
protecting, preserving, distributing, and utilizing the storm and
flood waters of the rivers and streams situated in said District
[and the underground waters situated thereunder] and for the
purpose of regulating and controlling the disposal of sewage,
wastes, and other refuse, and the collection and disposal thereof,
to prevent the contamination and pollution of the public waters of
the District. It shall have the power to formulate and execute any
and all plans deemed essential to the accomplishment of the
purposes for which it is created and shall be recognized to have
such authority and power of control and regulation over the storm
and flood waters of its rivers and streams [and its underground
waters] as may be exercised by the State of Texas, subject to the
provisions of the Constitution and Section 4 of this Act.
SECTION 2. Section 3, Chapter 306, Acts of the 49th
Legislature, Regular Session, 1945 (Article 8280-126, Vernon's
Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
Sec. 3. In addition to the powers vested by the Constitution
and general laws in such public agency for the greatest practicable
measure of the conservation, preservation, and beneficial
utilization of its public waters, the power to control and utilize
its public waters and to regulate the disposal and the disposal of
sewage, waste, and refuse, the District shall have the following
general powers:
(a) Through every practical and legal means to develop,
transport, deliver, distribute, store, and treat water for use
within the District, including [control and regulate and to
coordinate the control and regulation of the waters of the
watershed of the San Antonio River and tributaries in the District
and] the storm and flood [and underground] waters within [of] the
District, including the power to cooperate with the United States
Government or any agency thereof, or any municipality, public,
quasi-public or private agency and to contract, negotiate, and
enter into agreements with any one or more of such agencies in
effecting such purposes;
(b) to store, control, and conserve storm and flood waters
of its rivers and streams and to prevent the escape of any such
waters without first obtaining therefrom a maximum of public
service; to prevent devastation of property from overflow and to
protect life and property from uncontrolled flood and storm waters;
(c) to conserve and distribute waters essential for
domestic and other uses by the inhabitants of the District,
including necessary water supply for cities and towns situated
within the District;
(d) to provide for the development of drainage systems to
control, regulate, and dispose of all storm and flood waters of the
District so as to protect effectively lives and property, and to
utilize such waters for each and every purpose for which flood and
storm waters when controlled, conserved, or regulated may be
utilized as contemplated by the Constitution and the public policy
therein declared;
(e) to provide by purchase, construction, lease, gift, or in
any other manner and to operate any and all facilities deemed by the
District essential for preserving the purity of all the surface and
underground waters of the District for the protection of the health
of its inhabitants, and to formulate plans to make and enforce rules
and regulations for the effective disposal of any and all sewage
wastes, refuse, or residuum, however accumulated; which otherwise
would contaminate, pollute, or render unsafe and insanitary the
surface and underground waters of the District and which might
threaten or impair the health of its inhabitants or which might
adversely affect the health of the inhabitants downstream below the
District;
(f) to acquire by purchase, construction, lease, gift, or in
any other manner (otherwise than by condemnation) and to maintain,
use, and operate any and all property of any kind, real, personal,
or mixed, or any interest therein within or without the boundaries
of the District deemed by its Board of Directors necessary or
convenient to the exercise of the powers, rights, privileges, and
functions conferred upon it by this Act;
(g) to acquire by condemnation any and all property of any
kind, real, personal, or mixed, or any interest therein, within or
outside of the boundaries of the District, necessary to the
exercise of the powers, rights, privileges, and functions conferred
by this Act, in the manner provided by General Law relative to
condemnation, or at the option of the District, in the manner
provided by law with respect to condemnation by agencies organized
pursuant to Section 59, Article 16 of the Constitution of the State
of Texas; provided that the District shall not have the right or
power to so condemn any such property that may be owned by any other
political subdivision, city, or town located within the District;
(h) to cooperate, contract, and enter into agreements with
towns, cities, districts, or political subdivisions located in or
outside of the District and with Bexar County, in the construction,
purchase, lease, maintenance, improvement, use, and operation of
any and all facilities, works, and plants necessary or convenient
to the accomplishment of the purposes for which the District was
created;
(i) to make contracts with any person, private corporation,
municipal corporation, political subdivision, or the Board of
Trustees thereof, operating water distribution facilities for the
benefit of a city or town within the District, under which the
District may perform services for such parties or such parties may
perform services for the District, or under which either may
operate all or any part of the facilities of the other, having due
regard for the duties and obligations of such parties in the
instrument prescribing their or its duties;
(j) to construct, extend, improve, maintain, and
reconstruct, to cause to be constructed, extended, improved,
maintained, or reconstructed and to use and operate any and all
facilities of any kind necessary or convenient to the exercise of
the powers, rights, privileges, and functions conferred by this
Act;
(k) to sue and be sued in its corporate name;
(l) to make by-laws for the management and regulation of its
affairs conformably to the powers and purposes herein conferred and
consistent with the Constitution of this State;
(m) to make rules and regulations and to prescribe penalties
for the breach of any rule or regulation of the District, which
penalties shall not exceed fines of more than Two Hundred Dollars
($200), or imprisonment for more than thirty (30) days, or may
provide both such fine and such imprisonment. The penalties hereby
authorized shall be in addition to any other penalties provided by
the laws of Texas and may be enforced by complaints filed in the
appropriate court of jurisdiction in the county in which the
district's principal office is located; provided, however, that no
rule or regulation which provides a penalty for the violation
thereof shall be in effect, as to enforcement of the penalty, until
five days next after the district may have caused a substantive
statement of the particular rule or regulation and the penalty for
the violation thereof to be published, once a week for two
consecutive weeks, in one or more newspapers affording general
circulation in the area in which the property of the district is
situated; and, the substantive statement so to be published shall
be as condensed as is possible to afford an intelligent direction of
the mind to the object sought to be accomplished or the act
forbidden by the rule or regulation; one notice may embrace any
number of regulations; there must be embraced in the notice advice
that breach of the particular regulation, or regulations, will
subject the violator to the infliction of a penalty and there also
shall be included in the notice advice that the full text of the
regulation sought to be enforced is on file in the principal office
of the District, where the same may be read by any interested
person. Five (5) days after the second publication of the notice
hereby required, the advertised regulation shall be in effect, and
ignorance of any such regulation shall not constitute a defense to a
prosecution for the enforcement of a penalty; and, the rules and
regulations authorized hereby, after the required publication,
shall judicially be known to the courts and shall be considered of a
nature like unto that of valid penal ordinances of a city of the
State;
(n) to adopt, use, and alter a corporate seal;
(o) to appoint agents and employees; prescribe their duties
and fix their compensation;
(p) to make contracts and execute instruments necessary or
convenient to the exercise of the powers, rights, privileges, and
functions herein conferred;
(q) to borrow money for its authorized purposes, to accept
grants or loans or allotments from the United States Government or
any of its agencies, or others, and in connection with any such
grants, loans, or allotments to enter into such agreements as may be
required to make them effective, and for the purpose of obtaining
funds to issue its negotiable tax bonds and its negotiable revenue
bonds in the manner and to the extent hereinafter provided;
(r) to operate and maintain with consent of the governing
body of any city, town, or political subdivision located in the
District any works, plants, or facilities deemed necessary or
convenient to the accomplishment of the purposes for which the
District is created;
(s) to enter into planning agreements with the Texas Water
Development Board under Subchapter C, Chapter 16, Water Code, for
the purpose of conducting studies necessary to maintain retail
water supply services to customers within the boundaries of the
District; and
(t) to cooperate with and support local fire departments and
economic development activities sponsored by local entities within
the District that use water and water resources provided, or to be
provided, by the District.
SECTION 3. Chapter 306, Acts of the 49th Legislature,
Regular Session, 1945 (Article 8280-126, Vernon's Texas Civil
Statutes), is amended by adding Section 5A to read as follows:
Sec. 5A. In addition to the territory described by Section 5
of this Act, and in conformity with the court's order dated April
22, 1996, in Rios v. Bexar Metropolitan Water District et al., No.
SA-96CA-0335, in the United States District Court, Western District
of Texas, for purposes of the exercise of the District's current
retail water utility services the District's boundaries shall
include the territory defined in all of the portions of, or the
applicable portions of, the census tracts or property situated
within the area described by certificates of convenience and
necessity numbers 10675, 12759, and 12760 issued by the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality as they are in effect on the
effective date of this section.
SECTION 4. Sections 6, 6a, and 20, Chapter 306, Acts of the
49th Legislature, Regular Session, 1945 (Article 8280-126,
Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), are repealed.
SECTION 5. (a) This Act takes effect immediately if it
receives a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each
house, as provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution.
If this Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate
effect, this Act takes effect September 1, 2003.
(b) The repeal of Sections 6, 6a, and 20, Chapter 306, Acts
of the 49th Legislature, Regular Session, 1945 (Article 8280-126,
Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), does not affect an annexation
proceeding initiated before the effective date of this Act. An
annexation proceeding initiated before the effective date of this
Act is governed by the law in effect immediately before the
effective date of this Act, and the former law is continued in
effect for that purpose.
(c) The repeal of Sections 6, 6a, and 20, Chapter 306, Acts
of the 49th Legislature, Regular Session, 1945 (Article 8280-126,
Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), does not affect a pending
application for a certificate of convenience and necessity that has
been referred by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to
the State Office of Administrative Hearings before the effective
date of this Act. An application referred before the effective date
of this Act is governed by the law in effect immediately before the
effective date of this Act, and the former law is continued in
effect for that purpose.
COMMITTEE AMENDMENT NO. 1
Amend S.B. 1494 (Engrossed Version) by striking lines 1
through 12 on page 8 and substituting the following new SECTION 3:
SECTION 3. Chapter 306, Acts of the 49th Legislature,
Regular Session, 1945 (Article 8280-126 Vernon's Civil Statutes) is
amended by adding SECTION 5A to read as follows:
Sec. 5A(1) The district's boundaries for purposes of the
exercise of its powers and duties is defined in Section 5, Chapter
306, Acts of the 49th Legislature, 1945 (Article 8280-126 Vernon's
Texas Civil Statutes).
(2) In conformity with the Court's Judgment dated
April 22, 1996 in Cause No. SA96CA0335, Rios v. Bexar Metropolitan
Water District et al., (U.S. District Court - W.D. Texas), and for
the purpose of the exercise of its current retail water utility
services, the District's boundaries shall include the territory
defined in all or applicable portions of census tracts or property
situated within any area certificated by the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality to the District on the date of passage of this
Act pursuant to Certificates of Convenience and Necessity Nos.
10675, 12759, and 12760.
Puente