§ 46-15.2-2. Legislative findings. The general assembly finds and declares that:

(1) A number of Rhode Island municipalities periodically suffer water shortages severe enough to require usage curtailments as a result of droughts.

(2) The limited water supply systems and sources of these municipalities, burdened by rising water usage caused by growth and development, will encounter increasing difficulties coping with short-term climatologically caused shortages.

(3) The quality of water supplies of a number of municipalities are threatened by development and by contamination.

(4) Population growth, commercial and industrial development, and patterns of higher water consumption have forced some communities to abandon or supplement their inadequate or contaminated original sources of water, and to develop new supplies of water often located beyond their borders and outside their original service areas.

(5) It has become evident that individual water systems serving the public often no longer have the financial resources to find and develop adequate new water supplies. The costs of constructing aqueducts, major transmission lines, and pumping stations to deliver water to communities from remote sources, and the difficulties in acquiring rights-of-way, overwhelm most communities and indicate the need for state involvement.

(6) Water of high quality is a sufficiently abundant resource in Rhode Island that enough water can be made available to meet all the needs of each Rhode Islander through the foreseeable future provided that water can be conveyed to the communities and water systems in need from remote sources.

(7) The water resources board was established in 1967 and charged with the responsibility of acquiring and developing new major water supplies for the people of Rhode Island. The Rhode Island water facilities assistance program enables the water resources board to assist public water systems in obtaining and delivering potable water to meet present and future needs throughout the state of Rhode Island.

(8) The water resources board and other existing agencies of state government have adequate capability and authority to carry out this program without the creation of new agencies.

History of Section. (P.L. 1983 (S.S.), ch. 332, art. II, § 1.)