§ 8-1-8-1 — Limitations on power

(a) A public utility, except in cities of the third
class, engaged in the production, transmission, delivery, or furnishing
of heat, light, water, or power or for the collection, treatment,
purification, and disposal in a sanitary manner of liquid and solid
sewage or furnishing facilities for transmission of intelligence by
electricity to towns and cities and to the public in general or for the
furnishing of elevator or warehouse service, either directly or
indirectly, to or for the public, for the purpose of enabling it to perform
its functions, may appropriate and condemn lands of individuals and
private corporations, or any easement in any lands, necessary to the
carrying out of its objects, whether the same be for its building,
structures, dams, line of poles, wires, mains, conduits, and pipelines,
or right-of-way to accommodate railway siding or switch tracks
connecting its plant or plants with the tracks of any common carrier,
overflowage by backwater from its dams, waste, or sluiceways.
(b) However, within the limits of any incorporated town or city, the
authority to appropriate does not:
(1) extend to lands situated in any city block in which more than
fifty percent (50%) of the frontage is devoted to residence
purposes;
(2) extend to common carriers engaged in the transportation of
freight or passengers; or
(3) give to any public utility any right or authority to:
(A) appropriate any land or easement within the corporate
limits of any city for overflowage by backwater from any dam;
(B) appropriate or acquire any dam, race, or sluiceway existing
on May 31, 1921, or any interest in either, except to use water
for condensation purposes;
(C) appropriate or acquire any pipeline laid or contained within
the limits of private property; or
(D) authorize any corporation developing hydroelectric power
to unreasonably interfere with or disturb the natural flow of the
stream from which power may be derived. Lands or easements
in lands acquired by appropriation and condemnation shall be
held and enjoyed by the company for those purposes as though
the land or easement had been acquired by purchase.
(c) If a not-for-profit sewer utility (as described in IC 8-1-2-125(a))
appropriates or condemns land to acquire an easement or right-of-way
necessary to carry out the not-for-profit sewer utility's objectives, the
easement or right-of-way may not exceed fifty (50) feet in width.
(d) The appropriation and condemnation of lands and easements in
lands authorized by this section must be done under the terms and
conditions and in the manner prescribed by IC 32-24-1.
Formerly: Acts 1921, c.98, s.1; Acts 1961, c.195, s.1. As
amended by P.L.59-1984, SEC.59; P.L.2-2002, SEC.36; P.L.97-2012,
SEC.2.