§167-17  Formation of irrigation project on
initiative of board; notice and hearing; protests.  The board of
agriculture may organize irrigation projects upon its own initiative.  In this
event, it shall fix a date for public hearing upon the proposed project, which
date shall not be less than sixty days after the first public notice thereof in
the county in which the project is proposed.  The notice shall be given once in
each of four successive weeks, describing or identifying the area to be
included in and general details of the proposed project, stating the time and
place of the public hearing.  If the owners of fifty-five per cent of the
acreage of agricultural and pasture lands proposed to be organized into an
irrigation project at the hearing or prior thereto file written protest against
the proposed project, the project shall not be made and proceedings shall not
be renewed within twelve months from the date of closing the public hearing,
unless each and every owner protesting withdraws each and every owner's
protest; provided that any lessee of any agricultural or pasture lands included
within the proposed project, who, by the express terms of the lessee's lease
must pay the assessment contemplated hereunder shall be subrogated to all the
rights of the owner to protest by filing at the hearing or prior thereto
written protest against the proposed project, the written protest to be
accompanied by a certified copy of the lease; provided further that any lessor,
at any time before the closing of the public hearing, may make void the protest
of the lessor's lessee on consideration of the filing with the board a duly
acknowledged waiver of the provision in the lease which requires the lessee to
pay the assessment, and a written undertaking of the lessor to pay the
assessment to be made on account of the proposed project; and further provided
that a project may be instituted without further public notice for a smaller
acreage within the acreage described in the public notice in the event the
board determines the smaller project to be economically feasible, if written
protests by the owners, or lessees subrogated to the right to protest, of
fifty-five per cent of the smaller acreage shall not be filed. [L 1987, c 306,
pt of §1; am L 1998, c 2, §33]