Bill > S2695

Introduced Session

This bill would authorize municipalities to levy special assessments, and issue bonds, to replace certain lead-contaminated water service lines. Pursuant to R.S.40:56-1, if a municipality engages in a project that is categorized as a "local improvement," the municipality may assess the cost of the project on local property owners in the vicinity who benefit from the project. This bill adjusts language in R.S.40:56-1 to ensure that the replacement of certain lead-contaminated home service connections fall within this category, allowing those projects to be assessed as local improvements. The bill would also amend N.J.S.40A:2-22, a section of the "Local Bond Law," to permit municipalities and counties to issue 30-year bonds to fund the replacement of lead-contaminated house connections to publicly-owned water systems. Specifically, these bonds would fund replacement of lead-contaminated house connections from the distribution main onto privately-owned real property, and into the privately-owned structure. The bill also amends the "County and Municipal Water Supply Act," N.J.S.40A:31-1 et seq., and the "municipal and county utilities authorities law," P.L.1957, c.183 (C.40:14B-1 et seq.), to provide that the public entities operating under those laws are not prevented from undertaking projects to replace lead-contaminated service connections, regardless of possible private service connection ownership. The provisions of this bill only would apply to service line replacement projects that are: (1) undertaken as environmental infrastructure projects, as defined under section 3 of P.L.1985, c.334 (C.58:11B-3); and (2) funded either by loans from the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank, created pursuant to section 4 of P.L.1985, c.334 (C.58:11B-4), or by loans issued through the Department of Environmental Protection.

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Ronald Rice (D)*,  Teresa Ruiz (D)*,  Linda Greenstein (D), 

Substituted by A4120 (on 06/25/2018)