2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-TWO - Public Works (§§ 1 — 1104) › Chapter 9 - Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (§§ 141 — 169) › § 144 - Purposes and powers

The Authority is created for the purpose of providing and helping to provide for the citizens an adequate drinking water, sanitary sewage service and any other service or facility proper or incidental thereto. The Authority shall have and may exercise all rights and powers necessary or convenient to carry out such purposes, including, but without limitation to, the following:
(a) To have perpetual existence as a corporation.
(b) To adopt, alter and use a corporate seal which shall be judicially noticed.
(c) To sue and be sued in its corporate name, except that it may not be sued for damages arising from the real or alleged impurity, irregularity, or insufficiency of the water supplied by it and except that judicial sale of properties of the Authority shall not be permitted.
(d) To make contracts and to execute all instruments necessary or convenient in the exercise of any of its powers including, but without limitation, contracts for the management of its properties or any part thereof.
(e) To acquire real, personal or mixed, tangible or intangible property (including, but without limitation, its own obligations and those of other corporations) through any lawful means (including, but without limitation, the exercise by the Authority directly and on its own behalf of the power of eminent domain or by its request as provided in § 149 of this title), hold, operate, and administer said property and to dispose of any part thereof that the Authority shall find to be surplus to its purposes.
(f) To appoint officers, agents and employees and to fix for them such powers and duties as the Authority may determine and, without limitation, to employ by contract or otherwise such consulting engineers, superintendents, managers and such other engineers, construction and accounting experts, attorneys and other employees and agents as may be necessary in the judgment of the Authority.
(g) To borrow money and to issue revenue bonds for any of its corporate purposes, including without limitation the purpose of funding, refunding or purchasing with or without premium, paying or discharging any outstanding bonds or other obligations issued or assumed by it, the principal of or the interest upon which is payable in whole or in part from revenues of the Authority.
(h) To accept grants of any kind from any source.
(i) To determine, fix, alter, charge or collect, as provided herein, reasonable rates, fees, rents and other charges for the use of the facilities of the Authority, or for the water and sewage services, and other products or services sold, rendered or furnished by it. The Authority shall have a maximum term of one hundred and twenty (120) days counting from the issue of water use or sanitary sewage service bills to notify residential and small business customers of any miscalculation of charges. Once said term concludes, the Authority may not claim retroactive charges for such miscalculations, such as those of an administrative, or operating nature, or reading of water meters which register water useage, which were not detected by said customers and notified to the Authority at the time they occurred. It shall be understood that the miscalculation could have been detected by the customer if there is a reduction in the use as [it] appears in his/her bill or if the amount thereof is at least fifty percent (50%) or less compared to the bill immediately proceeding the miscalculation, without there being a reason that justifies said reduction. It shall be the responsibility of the customer who alleges a different reason, to furnish evidence to support the occurrence and how it affected his/her water consumption. For the purposes of §§ 141—161 of this title, small businesses shall be considered all those non-residential customers, except the Government, whose average water consumption, based on the six months before any irregularity, damage or error, which has affected the water consumption recording, does not exceed one hundred and ten (110) cubic meters in a monthly reading period or of two hundred and twenty (220) cubic meters in a bimonthly reading period. Monthly and bimonthly periods shall have the same number of billing days cycles in the Authority.
(j) To have complete control and supervision of its properties and activities, including the power to make and enforce such rules and regulations for the maintenance and operation thereof, as in the judgment of the Authority may be necessary or desirable for the efficient operation thereof and for accomplishing the purposes of §§ 141—161 of this title, and including the power to determine the character of and necessity for all its expenditures and the manner in which they shall be incurred, allowed and paid and such determination shall be final and conclusive.
(k) To prescribe, adopt, amend, and repeal bylaws governing the manner in which its general business may be conducted and the powers and duties granted to and imposed upon it by law may be exercised and performed.
(l) To enter on any lands, waters, or premises, after notifying the owners or holders thereof, or their representatives, for the purpose of making surveys, soundings, and examinations.
(m) To improve and extend the water and sewer facilities under its jurisdiction and to provide additional facilities of the same character.
(n) To do all acts or things necessary or convenient to carry out the purposes of §§ 141—161 of this title.
(o) [Omitted.]
(p) Enter into agreements and execute plans, projects, including delegation and co-management agreements, among others, with federal and local environmental and health regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
(q) When grave circumstances of administration, operation, of financial nature, or difficulty to comply with environmental and health regulations so require in the judgment of the Board, it shall make a declaration of a State of Emergency of the entire or part of the aqueduct and sewer system through a resolution to that effect, and once said resolution has been ratified by the Governor, the Board may take all the measures that in the judgment of the Board are necessary to bring the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority or part thereof out of such a state of emergency as soon as possible. This procedure to declare a State of Emergency shall not be necessary to determine an operational emergency by the management for the purposes of § 151 of this title, even though a declaration of a State of Emergency under this subsection would indeed constitute a cause to activate the procedures allowed under said § 151 of this title.
(r) To repair hydrants (fire hydrants) identified by the Puerto Rico Firefighters Chief, as provided in subsection (u) of § 331c of Title 25. For such purposes, it shall coordinate a work plan with the Chief of the Firefighters Corps that shall take the following aspects into consideration:
(1) The development of an interagency structure;
(2) the continuous evaluation, revision and update of the information and of the inspection, operations and preventive maintenance procedures in effect;
(3) the development of a plan for citizen awareness on the importance of protecting fire hydrants, and
(4) the evaluation of new ideas whose purpose is to help fire hydrant conservation.
(s) Create inside or outside of Puerto Rico, affiliate or associate, companies, joint ventures, partnerships, subsidiary corporations, whether for profit or nonprofit, for purposes, among others, of developing, financing, building, and operating industrial projects and other infrastructure directly related to the maximization of the Authority’s infrastructure, and to acquire, hold, and dispose of securities and shares, contracts, bonds or other interests in other companies, entities, or corporations, and to exercise any and all powers and rights granted by such interest, provided, that, in the judgment of the Board of Directors, such action is necessary, appropriate, or convenient to achieve the purposes of the Authority, or to exercise its powers, and to sell, lease, assign, or otherwise convey any property of the Authority or to delegate or transfer any of its rights, powers, functions, or duties to any of said companies, entities, or corporations that are subject to its full or partial authority. The foregoing shall be carried out without impairing the current functions of other public corporations and/or agencies of the Government of Puerto Rico.
The Authority shall have no power at any time or in any manner to pledge the credit or taxing power of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or any of its other political subdivisions. The bonds and other obligations issued by the Authority shall not be a debt of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico nor of any of its municipalities nor of its other political subdivisions and neither the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico nor any such municipalities nor its other political subdivisions shall be liable thereon, nor shall such bonds or other obligations be paid out of any funds other than those of the Authority.
History —May 1, 1945, No. 40, p. 138, § 4; May 3, 1949, No. 163, p. 430, § 1; Nov. 11, 1978, No. 1, p. 665, § 1; Sept. 29, 2000, No. 406, § 1; June 30, 2002, No. 95, § 4; Mar. 31, 2004, No. 92, § 3; Sept. 29, 2004, No. 494, § 1; Nov. 21, 2011, No. 228, § 1.