Title L, Water Management and Protection

The department shall adopt rules, under RSA 541-A, relative to: I. Procedures and standards for accreditation of laboratories, including but not limited to the form and content of approval and accreditation application forms, analytical techniques to be employed, standard collect…

The department may institute a wellhead protection program as described in section 1428 of the federal Safe Drinking Water Amendments of 1986. The program shall be consistent with the provisions of RSA 485-C and shall include, but not be limited to, the following: I. Determinatio…

It is declared that there is statewide need for long-range planning in order that the health and safety of the people of the state may be protected in respect to adequate water supplies for domestic use.

The acquisition of adjacent or marginal lands necessary to provide reasonable sanitary control over the quality of a public water supply shall be deemed an improvement in sanitary conditions which is within the power of the department to require under the provisions of RSA 485:4.…

The department of environmental services is authorized and directed to study the probable domestic water supply requirements of groups of towns or cities, or both, which appear likely to have increased industrial and population growths for the next 50 years. In connection with sa…

The department of environmental services is authorized, within the limits of the appropriations made therefor, to employ engineers and other assistants to make the studies authorized by this subdivision.

Whenever any study of a group plan for domestic water supply projects is made the department of environmental services shall report the same to the next session of the legislature together with its recommendations to make secure the availability of those sites which the departmen…

Upon request the department of environmental services shall consult with and advise any municipality which is considering a change in its domestic water supply due to an approaching critical situation in the municipality.

No person shall cut or take ice from any lake, pond or reservoir used as the source of a domestic public water supply, unless he shall first comply in all respects with such reasonable rules regarding the manner and place of such cutting and taking as may be prescribed by the loc…

Any person who knowingly or willfully shall cut or take ice for domestic purposes from any waters which are polluted with sewage or other substance deleterious or dangerous to life or health, or from waters which a board of health, local health officer or the department has conde…

Health officers of the cities and towns of the state, and the department of environmental services, shall examine and inspect the sources from which ice is cut, or is proposed to be cut, for domestic use in such cities and towns, and to employ any necessary means to determine whe…

If the waters of the sources of ice supplies shall be found so polluted that the ice taken from those sources will be unsafe for domestic use, the local health officer or the department of environmental services shall immediately notify such person who may have taken, or who prop…

I. The department may issue an administrative order to any person who violates any provision of this chapter, any rule adopted under this chapter, or any license or approval issued under this chapter or who makes or certifies a material false statement relative to any document re…

Actions of the department under RSA 485:1-4; 8, II; 31; 41-44; 46-48, or 58, I may be appealed under RSA 21-O:14.

Any public water supply system which utilizes any of the surface water of the state, as defined in RSA 485-A, as the source of supply, shall, as a minimum means of treatment, be provided with suitable chlorination or other disinfection facilities installed, operated and maintaine…

Nothing in this chapter shall repeal any special act applying to cities and towns.

I. The department shall adopt rules, pursuant to RSA 541-A, for water conservation practices for water users. These rules shall strike a reasonable balance between environmental, energy, and economic impacts and be consistent with current industry standards and practices for diff…

Any municipality, corporation or person who shall fail to install or to operate and maintain disinfection facilities in accordance with the foregoing requirements shall be guilty of a violation for each day of failure to so install, operate or maintain such equipment. Said penalt…

I. No person, proposing to supply water for domestic uses through a public water system or privately owned redistribution system, shall construct any new system, or enlarge any existing system, for supplying water to the public without first submitting detailed plans of the propo…

No public highway, access roads, or private ways of any sort, shall be constructed so as to traverse any watershed tributary to a lake, pond or reservoir used for the storage of public drinking water without first obtaining the approval of the department.