18-15-408. Cemeteries and graves.

18-15-408. Cemeteries and graves. (a)(1) An operating authority of a municipal waterworks system shall file a notice of intent to condemn in the circuit court of the county where a cemetery or graves are situated if the operating authority determines that: (A) Land occupied by the cemetery or by the graves will be flooded by an impounding lake; (B) The water level of the lake will affect the graves underground; (C) The lake may be contaminated by the graves; or (D) The lands will be useful for waterworks purposes. (2) The notice of intent to condemn shall set out the: (A) Commonly known name of the cemetery, if any; (B) Descriptions of the quarter sections of land upon which the cemetery or graves are situated; (C) Description of a proposed new location of the cemetery or graves; and (D) Name of the owner of the existing cemetery, if known. (3) The notice shall take the place of the application to condemn which would be otherwise required under this subchapter. (4) Service of process upon the owner, if known, shall be as specified in this subchapter. Service upon all other interested parties shall be as follows: (A) The notice shall be published one (1) time a week for four (4) consecutive weeks in some newspaper having a general circulation throughout the state in order to give the widest publicity to the municipality's intention; (B) In addition, a printed copy of the notice shall be posted in three (3) conspicuous public places in the cemetery or immediately surrounding the graves; (C) The notice shall be posted within three (3) days of filing the notice with the court; and (D) The municipality shall, by affidavit filed with the court, give proof of posting of the notice. (5)(A) Before filing the notice with the court, the municipality shall be required to select a tract of land at least equal in size to the cemetery to be condemned and shall describe the tract in the notice. (B) The municipality shall be required to file with its notice a statement from the Department of Health approving the proposed new location. (6) After the notice of intent has been published for four (4) weeks, as required by this section, the circuit court sitting without a jury shall determine if the proposed new location is suitable, and, if the court so finds, it shall enter an order to that effect. The owner of the cemetery or of the lands where the existing cemetery is located and the next of kin of any person buried in the cemetery or in the graves shall be entitled to appear in the proceeding and object to the proposed location and suggest other locations. (b)(1) Thereafter, the municipality may file an application under the provisions of this subchapter for condemnation of the site so approved by the court, within a radius of four (4) miles of the existing cemetery. (2) It is declared that the acquisition of the site shall be for public purposes and that the site may be condemned by the operating authority of a municipal waterworks system. (c)(1) After judgment has been entered vesting title to the new site in the applicant, as set out in § 18-15-404, the court shall enter an order in the proceedings mentioned in subsection (a) of this section, vesting title to the new cemetery site in the persons owning the lands of the cemetery or graves to be relocated and vesting title in the municipality to the lands where the old cemetery or graves are located. (2) The order vesting title to the new cemetery site in the owners of the old cemetery or grave sites shall be the compensation and damages to which the owners of the old sites are entitled. (d)(1) Thereafter, the municipality, at its own expense, shall be required to remove all bodies, tombstones, and markers from the site of the original graves and to reinter the bodies in the new site, properly resetting tombstones and markers, if any, at the new site. (2) The court may require the municipality to deposit with the clerk of the court a sum found by the court to be sufficient to ensure the performance of the obligation by the municipality. (3) However, any surviving spouse or next of kin of a person whose grave is to be relocated may demand, prior to removal from the old grave site, that the municipality pay the expense of removing the body of the decedent to a cemetery selected by the surviving spouse or next of kin, the municipality paying the reasonable cost of the removal and reinterment. (e) If the old cemetery site was fenced, the municipality shall be required to install a fence of similar type around the new cemetery site and shall be required to construct within the cemetery such hard-surfaced roads as may be necessary to give access to grave sites. The roads shall be of at least equal quality with the roads in the original cemetery site.