You know when you walk through the street, you see people installing a lot of wires, cables, pipes and lots of things to keep the whole infrastructure organized. Well, there is a law for that as well. Yes, the Indiana Utility Easement laws. The title itself may sound boring, but it tells about an important concept.

Utility easement is basically the rights of a utility company for installing as well as maintaining the utilities. The owner of the property doesn’t have any right regarding the space given to the utility company. This law applies to the underground and above-ground pipelines, telephone lines, and electric lines.

In 1819, Indiana legislature enacted a private act regarding waterworks, aqueducts, roadways, and railways. This was the first law which dealt with establishing and maintaining maintenance of the public works in Indiana. Afterwards in 1823, the Indiana legislature passed the act regarding Likens v. State ex rel. Indiana Bell Tel. Co. (1969) 252 Ind. 20, 245 N.E.2d 151. This permitted the overhead and underground construction of public utility. So, in this way, the modern utility easement came forward.

The concept of utility easement has become a major key in many of the facilities or structures which are important for urban planning. One of the major objectives of such facilities is to develop the performance of the overall structure or facility. Therefore, in urban areas, it became difficult to develop the infrastructure with easy access to the roads. Some of the localities in Indiana had used the utility easement in order to develop and establish the transportation system for fuel as well as for maintaining an easy connection with the water supply network.

One of the most common examples of utility easement is Overhead MLS which is also known as malleable iron system for underground structures. The main purpose of this system is to provide support to the underground utilities such as sewer mains and water mains. Even though these systems have been in use for a long time, the industry still faces difficulties regarding the overload of the utilities.

In most of the facilities, the owners have the right to build the infrastructure. One example of these rights is excavating the ground for laying the underground utilities such as pipes and cables. However, the individuals also have a right to forewarn the utility company regarding the intentions of changing or extending the route of the utilities.

With the enactment of this act, many powerful corporations and private developers, such as gas and electric utilities are being challenged with the pro-rate issues. For example, in some cases, the excavator has found it difficult accessing the right-of-way access in order to lay the pipelines for their infrastructures or at other times they face problems accessing the area in order to withdraw the pipelines.

There is a duty of the person in order to install and maintain the overhead and underground pipelines and other utilities. The Indiana Utility Easement is one of the major laws which mainly deals with the installations of the pipelines and other utilities. Therefore, the provisions in this law apply to each of the land grants.

For more information on easement laws, you can visit the Wikipedia page on easements.