SENATE DOCKET, NO. 168        FILED ON: 1/12/2009

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 367

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the Year Two Thousand Nine

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An Act preserving an equitable allocation of drinking water supplies for the citizens of the Commonwealth..

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1.  Section 8 of chapter 372 of the Acts of 1984 is hereby amended by adding thereto a new subsection (p) as follows:

(p) The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority shall not take, transfer, divert, impound, or otherwise make any use of the waters of the Connecticut River for the benefit of the authority for the purposes of furnishing supplies of drinking water either to any municipality, community, political subdivision, local body, user or person now or hereafter served as part of the authority’s water service area under the applicable provisions of chapter 372 of the Acts of 1984, as amended.  Nothing contained in the first sentence hereof is intended to nor shall be construed to limit or circumscribe the authority’s existing and continued use and stewardship over the source waters, reservoirs, or any other source of water supply, means of storage, or method of conveyance or distribution of drinking water supplies that are now, or that have ever been at any time entrusted to or otherwise made available to the care, custody and use of the authority or to any of its predecessors under the provision of any general or special law, of any agreement or of any established practice.