2023 Tennessee Code › Title 64 - REGIONAL AUTHORITIES (§§ 64-1-101 — 64-11-101) › Chapter 3 - FLOOD CONTROL AUTHORITIES (§§ 64-3-101 — 64-3-108) › Section 64-3-104 - Powers and duties

(a)
The authority is hereby specifically authorized and empowered to do any and all things necessary or desirable in forming and executing a comprehensive plan for controlling the flooding of the Mill Creek watershed, including, but not limited to, action in cooperation, when necessary or desirable, with appropriate local, state and federal agencies in prosecuting adopted and authorized projects for the construction of dams, floodways, drainage canals, reservoirs, channel rectification and other flood control and drainage works within the Mill Creek watershed to prevent losses caused by flooding. To that end, the authority:
(1)
Shall have succession in its corporate name;
(2)
May sue and be sued in its corporate name;
(3)
May adopt and use a corporate seal;
(4)
May establish, amend and repeal bylaws and make all rules and regulations deemed expedient for the management of its corporate affairs and to accomplish the purposes of this chapter;
(5)
May make contracts, conveyances, mortgages, deeds of trust, bonds or leases and execute instruments containing such terms, provisions and conditions as in the judgment of the board may be necessary, proper or advisable in the exercise of the powers conferred upon it in this section, including, but not limited to, contracts for grants, loans or other assistance from any federal agency or other agency or person and contracts with corporations, associations or individuals for construction work in the furtherance of any project and may carry out and perform the terms and conditions of all such contracts or instruments;
(6)
May acquire by purchase, lease, devise, gift or by condemnation property of any kind, real, personal or mixed, or any interest therein, for the control of floodwaters as provided in this chapter, and such condemnation authority shall be narrowly construed in accordance with the effect and intent of this chapter;
(7)
(A)
May issue its bonds and bond anticipation notes from time to time in a total amount not to exceed five million dollars ($5,000,000) for the purpose of paying in whole or in part the cost of the acquisition of necessary land or interest in land and expenses incidental to the acquisition;
(B)
May secure such bonds and bond anticipation notes by a pledge of all or any part of the revenues that may now or hereafter come to the authority from any source by a mortgage or deed of trust of the authority's land or any part thereof, or by a combination of the two (2); and
(C)
May make such contracts or covenants in the issuance of such bonds and bond anticipation notes as may be necessary to ensure the marketability thereof;
(8)
Shall require all bonds issued under the authority of this chapter to be under the management and supervision of the department of economic and community development;
(9)
May arrange with any county, municipality, metropolitan government or supplier of utilities for the abandonment, relocation or other adjustment of roads, railroads, highways, bridges and utility lines; and
(10)
Shall have the final authority and power to disallow development within the one-hundred-year floodplain along Mill Creek.
(b)
(1)
The authority's power of eminent domain may be exercised pursuant to title 29, chapter 16 or pursuant to any other applicable statutory provisions now in force or hereafter enacted for the exercise of the power of eminent domain.
(2)
As an alternative to the eminent domain procedures pursuant to subdivision (b)(1), the authority may file in the court where condemnation proceedings of the authority are pending an application for a writ of possession, which the court shall, upon the authority's posting a bond with the clerk of the court in such amount as the court may deem commensurate with the value of the property condemned, order that a writ of possession shall issue immediately or as soon and upon such terms as the court, in its discretion, may deem proper and just.
(c)
During the time that title to land or rights in land are held by the authority, it shall be exempt from all taxes levied by the state or any of its political subdivisions, or instrumentalities of either; and all other property and activities of the authority shall be similarly exempt.
Acts 1980, ch. 897, § 4; T.C.A., §
66-3-104
.