70-30-102. Public uses enumerated. Subject to the provisions of this chapter, the right of eminent domain may be exercised in behalf of the following public uses:
     (1) all public uses authorized by the government of the United States;
     (2) public buildings and grounds for the use of the state and all other public uses authorized by the legislature of the state;
     (3) public buildings and grounds for the use of any county, city or town, or school district; canals, aqueducts, flumes, ditches, or pipes conducting water, heat, or gas for the use of the inhabitants of any county, city, or town; raising the banks of streams, removing obstructions therefrom, and widening, deepening, or straightening their channels; roads, streets, and alleys and all other public uses for the benefit of any county, city, or town or the inhabitants thereof, which may be authorized by the legislature; but the mode of apportioning and collecting the costs of such improvements shall be such as may be provided in the statutes or ordinances by which the same may be authorized;
     (4) wharves, docks, piers, chutes, booms, ferries, bridges, of all kinds, private roads, plank and turnpike roads, railroads, canals, ditches, flumes, aqueducts, and pipes for public transportation, supplying mines, mills, and smelters for the reduction of ores and farming neighborhoods with water and drainage and reclaiming lands and for floating logs and lumber on streams not navigable and sites for reservoirs necessary for collecting and storing water. However, such reservoir sites must possess a public use demonstrable to the district court as the highest and best use of the land.
     (5) roads, tunnels, ditches, flumes, pipes, and dumping places for working mines, mills, or smelters for the reduction of ores; also outlets, natural or otherwise, for the flow, deposit, or conduct of tailings or refuse matter from mines, mills, and smelters for the reduction of ores; also an occupancy in common by the owners or the possessors of different mines of any place for the flow, deposit, or conduct of tailings or refuse matter from their several mines, mills, or smelters for reduction of ores and sites for reservoirs necessary for collecting and storing water. However, such reservoir sites must possess a public use demonstrable to the district court as the highest and best use of the land.
     (6) private roads leading from highways to residences or farms;
     (7) telephone or electric light lines;
     (8) telegraph lines;
     (9) sewerage of any city, county, or town or any subdivision thereof, whether incorporated or unincorporated, or of any settlement consisting of not less than 10 families or of any public buildings belonging to the state or to any college or university;
     (10) tramway lines;
     (11) electric power lines;
     (12) logging railways;
     (13) temporary logging roads and banking grounds for the transportation of logs and timber products to public streams, lakes, mills, railroads, or highways for such time as the court or judge may determine; provided, the grounds of state institutions be excepted;
     (14) underground reservoirs suitable for storage of natural gas;
     (15) to mine and extract ores, metals, or minerals owned by the plaintiff located beneath or upon the surface of property where the title to said surface vests in others. However, the use of the surface for strip mining or open-pit mining of coal (i.e., any mining method or process in which the strata or overburden is removed or displaced in order to extract the coal) is not a public use, and eminent domain may not be exercised for this purpose;
     (16) to restore and reclaim lands strip- or underground-mined for coal and not reclaimed in accordance with Title 82, chapter 4, part 2, and to abate or control adverse affects of strip or underground mining on those lands.

     History: En. Sec. 580, p. 189, L. 1877; re-en. Sec. 580, 1st Div. Rev. Stat. 1879; re-en. Sec. 598, 1st Div. Comp. Stat. 1887; amd. Sec. 2211, C. Civ. Proc. 1895; amd. Sec. 1, p. 135, L. 1899; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 4, L. 1907; Sec. 7331, Rev. C. 1907; re-en. Sec. 9934, R.C.M. 1921; Cal. C. Civ. Proc. Sec. 1238; re-en. Sec. 9934, R.C.M. 1935; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 245, L. 1953; amd. Sec. 6, Ch. 259, L. 1955; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 216, L. 1961; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 311, L. 1973; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 375, L. 1974; R.C.M. 1947, 93-9902; amd. Sec. 18, Ch. 550, L. 1979.