Sec. 4. (a) To carry out this chapter, the board has jurisdiction to authorize projects of flood control and prevention over all watercourses, and property affected by these projects, within the flood control district and in or along any watercourse in any adjacent county that is a tributary to any watercourse in the district.

     (b) In carrying out such a project, the board has the following powers:

(1) To construct and maintain levees, dikes, retaining walls, dams, reservoirs, drains, and all other improvements in or along any watercourse designed to prevent damage and injury through floods and to conserve water resources.

(2) To provide for the disposal of excess water from any reservoir on such terms as the board considers best, so long as this does not impair the function of flood prevention provided by the improvements.

(3) To construct, reconstruct, repair, relocate, widen, or resurface any public way connected with such a project.

(4) To remove obstructions in, to dredge or control, to straighten, or to change the channel of any watercourse.

(5) To reconstruct any new public structure, or any new public bridge or bridges; or to alter, relocate, remove or require the removal of, repair, lengthen, widen, or reconstruct any public structure, or any public bridge or bridges, designed or used for vehicular or pedestrian traffic, and already built and located, whether originally built by a municipal corporation or any other person, across any watercourse.

(6) To regulate and establish channel, bank, and harbor lines on watercourses; to remove or to require to be removed any obstruction or encroachment in, beneath, above, along, or beyond channel, bank, and harbor lines; and to prevent any future obstructions or encroachments beyond these lines by dumping or filling with any material or in any other manner.

(7) To regulate the manner in which all sewers, drains, conduits, viaducts, aqueducts, cables, power lines, and pipelines of any description crossing the bed of any watercourse, or along its banks, or carried across, over, or under it on any bridge, trestle, support, or other structure, shall be located or relocated, replaced, altered, repaired, constructed, reconstructed, lengthened, widened, or removed, whether already constructed or proposed to be constructed or reconstructed by a municipal corporation or any other person.

(8) To regulate the general manner of construction of all temporary or permanent bridges, dikes, moorings, landings, dams, and spillways over, along, or in any watercourses proposed to be constructed or reconstructed by a municipal corporation or any other person.

(9) To regulate the removal by any persons of sand and gravel from watercourses and to establish the distance from bridges and other structures crossing them, and also the uniform grade lines to which sand and gravel may be excavated by any persons.

(10) To regulate the depth, waterway, height, alignment, location, and general manner of construction, reconstruction, and repair of any railroad bridge and of any person crossing over any watercourses or affected by carrying out of projects.

(11) To regulate the general manner of locating, relocating, constructing, reconstructing, altering, repairing, lengthening, widening, raising, and aligning any private bridge, including all its piers, abutments, and supports.

(12) To regulate and order that any of the matters described in this subsection shall be done by the person owning or controlling them, in carrying out projects, all subject to supervision and approval by the board.

(13) To cooperate with any department or agency of the federal government, and with any department or agency of the state, that is established for the purpose of developing a comprehensive plan or program for the protection of life and property from floods or flood hazards.

     (c) A project for flood control may not be carried out until it is submitted to and approved by the department of natural resources of the state.

As added by Acts 1982, P.L.77, SEC.24.