40:62-12. Municipal gas, steam and electricity plants; establishment and equipment; consent of other municipalities; procedure on refusal

Any municipality may purchase, condemn, take, have and hold all real or personal property, within or without the corporate limits of the municipality, necessary for the manufacture, generation, accumulation, storage, transmission and distribution of gas, electricity, steam or other product, or all of them, for supplying light, heat or power, or any two or all of them, for its own public purposes, and for the purpose of selling and supplying the same to its own inhabitants or to any other municipality, or both.

Any municipality may purchase, condemn, take, construct, maintain and operate a plant or plants for producing and distributing, or either, gas, electricity, steam, or other product, or all of them, for supplying light, heat or power, or any two or all of them, and all buildings, stations, machinery, apparatus, wires, poles, pipes, subways or conduits and appurtenances of every kind that may be necessary and useful for such purposes, with full power and authority to erect and maintain poles and string wires for the transmission of electric currents on any and all streets, avenues and highways of the municipality, or any other municipality.

Any municipality may string electric wires or lay gas or steam pipes, or other heat, light or power conductors therein, but one municipality shall not erect poles, string wires, lay pipes or other heat, light or power conductors in any other municipality until the governing body of such other municipality shall, by resolution, consent thereto, or until an order is made as hereinafter in this article provided. If the governing body of such other municipality shall refuse or neglect to give such consent, the Superior Court in an action by the municipality so applying for such consent may direct the terms on which such poles may be erected, wires strung, pipes or other heat, light or power conductors may be laid. The court may proceed in the action in a summary manner or otherwise. Upon the entry of the order or judgment of the court the municipality may in accordance therewith proceed with the work in the other municipality.

Amended by L.1953, c. 37, p. 713, s. 210, eff. March 19, 1953.