Oklahoma § 69-1403 - Public utilities on state highways - Notice of

§ 69-1403. Public utilities on state highways - Notice of

improvement or construction of highway - Location and removal of

facilities.

A. The location and removal of all telephone, telegraph,

electric light and power transmission lines, poles, wires and

conduits, water, sewers and all pipelines erected, constructed or in

place upon, across or under any state highway shall be under the

control and supervision of the Department of Transportation; and the

location and removal of any facility placed under rights granted

Oklahoma Statutes - Title 69. Roads, Bridges, and Ferries

hereunder on county highways shall be under the jurisdiction of the

particular board of county commissioners involved insofar as same

affects the public travel or interferes with the construction and

maintenance of such highway.

B. Prior to conducting the design survey for a proposed

improvement, construction, or reconstruction of a highway, the

authority having jurisdiction over the highway shall notify any

person, firm, or corporation overseeing the operating or maintaining

of any facility within the proposed project boundaries. Upon

receipt of notice or from a date specified in the notice, the

person, firm, or corporation shall have ten (10) days to locate and

mark the facilities.

C. Whenever the authority having jurisdiction over a particular

highway plans an improvement or construction or reconstruction of

the highway, and before the work is started, it shall serve a

written notice upon the person, firm or corporation owning or

maintaining any such facility, which notice shall contain a plan or

chart indicating the places on the right-of-way where the facilities

may be maintained. The notice shall state the time when the work of

improving the highway is proposed to commence, and a reasonable time

shall be allowed to the owner of the facility to remove and relocate

its property. The effect of any change ordered by the public

authority shall not be to exclude the facilities from the right-ofway of highways.

D. The removal and relocation of all the facilities located

within the public right-of-way prior to the planned improvement,

construction or reconstruction shall be made at the cost and expense

of the owners, unless otherwise provided by law or order of the

Department of Transportation, and in the event of the failure of

such owners to remove the same at the time set out in the notice,

they may be removed by the public authority and the cost of the

removal collected from the owners, and the authority shall not be

liable in any way to any person for the locating or relocating of

the facilities at the places prescribed. Any corporation or

association, or the officers or agents of such corporation or

association, or any other person who shall erect or maintain any

such lines, poles, wires, conduits, pipelines, equipment or other

facilities within the right-of-way of such highways in a manner not

in complete accordance with the orders of the respective public

authority shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.

E. The Department of Transportation may promulgate such rules

as it may deem necessary for the planting of trees and shrubbery and

parking along such state highways.

F. Rural water districts, nonprofit water corporations, and all

municipally owned utilities serving municipalities with a population

of ten thousand (10,000) or less, according to the latest Federal

Decennial Census, or their beneficial trusts shall be exempt from

Oklahoma Statutes - Title 69. Roads, Bridges, and Ferries

the payment of the costs and expenses for the removal and relocation

of municipally owned utilities constructed or in place in the public

right-of-way when the removal and relocation of such facilities is

necessary for the improvement, construction or reconstruction of any

road or highway which is part of the state highway system or

turnpike project as defined in subsection A of Section 501 and

Section 1705 of this title. Any costs and expenses, including any

unpaid on July 1, 1990, shall be paid by the public authority having

jurisdiction over the particular road or highway.

Added by Laws 1968, c. 415, § 1403, operative July 1, 1968. Amended

by Laws 1990, c. 137, § 1, operative July 1, 1990; Laws 2004, c.

137, § 3, emerg. eff. April 20, 2004; Laws 2007, c. 63, § 1, eff.

Nov. 1, 2007; Laws 2023, c. 234, § 1, eff. Nov. 1, 2023.