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A.  The department may construct canals, ditches, or drains sufficient in its judgment to properly drain any highway embraced in the system of state highways constructed or to be constructed through any lands of private persons.  The rights of way for these canals may be acquired in the same manner and on the same basis of compensation as provided for acquiring rights of way for highways.

B.  Except as provided in Subsection F herein, no highways shall be occupied by drainage canals or ditches except those drainage canals and ditches excavated, operated, and maintained by the department for the purpose of draining the highway.  The department may prohibit and prevent the connection of any drainage canal or ditch or any other system of drainage canals or ditches with the canals or ditches on a highway.

C.  The agents and employees of the department, under the direction of the chief engineer, may enter and clean or improve by widening and deepening, if necessary in the opinion of the chief engineer, such natural and public drainage channels, ditches, or canals that are adjacent to and form part of the drainage system of any state highway.

D.  The blocking or impeding of any drainage ditch on, along, or across a highway, or the blocking or impeding of any natural drainage crossed, by any means is prohibited.

E.  When any drainage area discharges naturally across a highway through a bridge, culvert, or other device, the department may prohibit and prevent any action which, by discharging into such a drainage area additional water not naturally falling within that area, or which, by increasing the run-off in the channel or channels across the highway, will jeopardize the safety and integrity of the structures across the highway.

F.(1)  The Department of Transportation and Development is hereby authorized to issue a permit to a local governing authority for construction of a drainage project located within the highway right-of-way.  Such permit may be issued if it is the opinion of the department that the drainage project is consistent with the purposes of the highway, the right-of-way of that highway, and will in no way have a negative impact on either the highway or the right-of-way of that highway.

(2)  Maintenance of any drainage project constructed under the provisions of this Subsection shall be the responsibility of the local governing authority which constructed the project and shall not be the responsibility of the department.

(3)  The department shall promulgate rules for the issuance of such permits and shall submit such rules for review by the House and Senate Committees on Transportation, Highways and Public Works under the Administrative Procedure Act.

G.  Upon request of the department, the state police shall issue a citation to any person who is in violation of this Section.  Every person who is convicted of a violation of this Section shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.

Amended by Acts 1977, No. 291, §1; Acts 1997, No. 242, §1, eff. June 17, 1997; Acts 2006, No. 11, §5; Acts 2010, No. 233, §2.