2709 - Special powers with regard to sewerage facilities.
§ 2709. Special powers with regard to sewerage facilities. The authority shall have power: 1. to acquire, construct, purchase or lease, in the name of the authority, any sewerage facility, sewer system, including plants, works, instrumentalities or parts thereof and appurtenances thereto, lands, easements, rights in land and water rights, rights-of-way, contract rights, franchises, approaches, connections and pipe lines, pumping stations and equipment or any other property incidental to and included in such sewerage facility system or part thereof, and any improvements, extensions and betterments, situated within the participating counties for the purpose providing adequate sanitary and storm water drainage to users, including the United States, within the participating counties; and as a means of so acquiring for such purposes, the authority may purchase all of the assets of any existing privately owned sewerage corporation or company; 2. to have and take ownership, jurisdiction, control, possession and supervision of any existing sewer system and any sewer facility financed, constructed or acquired pursuant to this title; to maintain, operate, reconstruct and improve the same as a comprehensive sewerage system and to make additions, betterments and extensions thereto, and to have all the rights, privileges and jurisdiction necessary or proper for carrying such power into execution. No enumeration of powers in this or any other general, special or local law shall operate to restrict the meaning of this general grant of power or to exclude other powers comprehended within this general grant; 3. to dispose of the sewage and waste of all persons, public corporations, the state, and the United States in the participating counties; 4. upon the filing by the governing body of any municipality within a participating county with the secretary of state of the state of New York, of its certificate delineating the existing sewer system and such municipality's intention and desire to transfer the existing sewer system to the authority, thereupon, and by virtue of this title, the existing sewer system, together with all contracts, books, maps, plans, papers and records of whatever description pertaining to subjects or matters relating to the design, construction, operation and affairs of the existing sewer system shall be assigned, transferred and dedicated to the use of and be in the possession of and under the jurisdiction, control and supervision of the authority and the authority is empowered to take possession thereof for its uses and purposes. The authority shall thereafter have complete jurisdiction, control, possession and supervision of the existing sewer system and of all the facilities in the municipality for the disposal of sewerage and storm water, and shall continue to exercise such power for a period not to exceed thirty years as contained in such certificate and so long thereafter as any of the bonds and liabilities of the authority shall remain unpaid or shall not have otherwise been discharged. When all of the bonds and liabilities of the authority shall have been paid in full or shall have otherwise been discharged and the authority shall have ceased to exist, the powers, jurisdiction and duty of the authority shall cease and the property and assets acquired or held by it pursuant to this section, together with any additions within the boundaries of such municipality shall thereafter become the property of, and shall be under the jurisdiction, control, possession and supervision of such municipality; 5. to establish a schedule of rates, rentals or charges, to be called "sewer rents," to be collected from all real property served by its sewerage facilities, and to prescribe the manner in which and the time at which such sewer rents are to be paid, provided that in no eventshall the authority collect rents within any city within a participating county, and to change such schedule from time to time as may be deemed advisable. Such sewer rents may be determined by the authority on any equitable basis. Prior to the final adoption or modification of such schedule of sewer rents, the authority shall adopt a proposed schedule of such sewer rents and publish notice thereof once a week for three successive weeks in each participating county served by the authority's sewer facilities. The notice so published shall be dated as of the date of first publication thereof and shall state that the proposed schedule of sewer rents will remain open for inspection in the office of the authority for thirty days from the date of such notice, and that objections thereto may be filed during said period with the authority by any person conceiving himself aggrieved thereby. The authority shall hear and examine any such complaints and may modify the proposed schedule and shall adopt a final schedule of sewer rents within sixty days after the date of said notice. The schedule of sewer rents so adopted shall thereafter be the sewer rents to be charged all real property served by the sewer facilities of the authority. From and after the due date thereof, such sewer rents shall constitute a lien upon the real property served by the facilities. In the event that any such sewer rent shall remain unpaid for a period of ninety days, the authority, or for property within any city within a participating county, such city, may bring and maintain an action in the supreme court for the foreclosure of such lien; 6. to adopt regulations in accordance with law providing that the authority shall shut off the supply of water to any premises upon which sewer rents have not been paid until the sewer rents are paid, together with provision for an equitable charge for restoring water service to said premises.