Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Chapter 253 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 50 the following section:-

Section 50A. The department of environmental management shall, subject to the appropriation of funds for such purpose, erect signs in the vicinity of all roll dams owned or under the control of the commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions to warn boaters of the location of said dams. For the purposes of this section a roll dam shall mean any broad crested weir, sharp crested weir or design head weir, the purpose of which is to change the flow of rivers from a critical to a noncritical flow.

Failure to comply with the provisions of this section shall not be used as evidence in any action commenced under the provisions of chapter two hundred and fifty-eight.

SECTION 2. The secretary of the commonwealth is hereby authorized and directed to cause all publications issued by the commonwealth, which in any way pertain to boating on inland waters of the commonwealth, to contain a statement warning boaters of the dangers of roll dams as defined in section fifty A of chapter two hundred and fifty-three of the General Laws.

SECTION 3. No person shall rent or cause to be rented any canoe or other non-powered vessel to any person upon any of the navigable inland waters of the commonwealth unless such person has first warned such boaters of the dangers of roll dams as defined in section fifty A of chapter two hundred and fifty-three of the General Laws.

SECTION 4. To provide for repairs to pipe conduits at the Snipatuit road and the sluiceway and fish ladder at Snipatuit pond in the town of Rochester, the sum of seventy thousand dollars is hereby appropriated from the General Fund. The department of environmental management is hereby authorized to expend such sum for such purposes subject to the provisions of law regulating the disbursement of public funds and the conditions pertaining to appropriations in chapter one hundred and forty of the acts of nineteen hundred and eighty-five.