P.R. Laws tit. 12, § 1115k
(a) The Secretary shall establish, through regulations, the fees to be paid for each permit or franchise which this chapter empowers him/her to grant, except for the provisions of subsections (b), (c) and (d) of this section. When establishing the regulations on the fees to be paid for each permit or franchise, the Secretary shall take into consideration the nature of the permits or franchises, their term of effectiveness, the investment of capital required to make the permit or franchise effective, the amount and quality of the waters whose use he/she shall authorize, the source of the waters, the purpose for which they shall be used, the impact of the utilization of the waters on natural systems and other rights and any other factors he/she may deem necessary to fix reasonable fees.
(b) The payment of fees for franchises shall not be required when property rights exist on certain volumes of water acquired pursuant to previous legislation nor in the case of agricultural, cattle raising and agricultural/industrial utilization, as these are defined by the Secretary of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources.
(c) The annual fee for each salt or sea water franchise shall be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150) plus twenty cents ($0.20) per each million (1,000,000) gallons authorized by the Secretary.
(d) A fifth (1 / 5) of a cent shall be paid per gallon of subterranean fresh water extracted under each franchise for industrial or commercial use.
(e) The funds corresponding to the collection of the fees provided in this section shall be deposited in a special account in the Department of the Treasury, known as the Water Fund, in favor of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources. Provided, That for Fiscal Year 2014-2015, two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) shall be transferred from this Fund to the “Legal Liability Fund”. Provided, further, That for Fiscal Year 2015-2016, the sum of eight hundred thousand dollars ($800,000) in account number 0500000-243-881-1998, or in any other created for the same purposes in the Department of the Treasury’s accounting system shall be transferred from this Fund to the “2015-2016 Legal Liability Fund”.
(f) Regarding the funds collected on account of the fees of one fifth of one cent per gallon, as established in subsection (d) of this section, the Secretary of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources shall set aside said funds exclusively for the administration and implementation of the Integrated Plan for the Conservation, Development and Use of the Water Resources through the Office of the Water Plan in the Water Resources Division of said Department, as well as for programs for the management and conservation of water resources, according to the responsibilities assigned to the Secretary of the Department in § 1115d of this title. The Secretary shall set aside part of the funds generated from the water franchises for water resource research programs, in cooperation with the USGS, which shall include the preparation of annual reports on the use of water on the Island, the condition of the aquifers in the North and South Regions, and the quality of the waters in the main watersheds.
(g) The commercial utilization of the waters that proceed from rain water collection systems or from the recycling systems for waters used by the tourism sector for the irrigation of green areas, including golf courses, shall be exempted from the fee of one fifth (⅕) of a cent per gallon. In those cases the fee shall be established by the Secretary through regulations, as provided in subsection (a) of this section.
(h) Water whose extraction or use is for the benefit of the communities that obtain water from rural or community aqueducts is hereby excluded from the payment of water fees, provided that the extraction is carried out pursuant to the regulations of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources and the applicable laws. The users of rural or community aqueducts shall contribute a proportional sum corresponding to the operating expenses of said aqueduct to the administrators thereof.
Notice This section has more than one version with varying effective dates. Second of two versions of this section.
History —June 3, 1976, No. 136, p. 390, § 12; Jan. 20, 1995, No. 16, § 1; Aug. 13, 1998, No. 239, § 1; Sept. 22, 2004, No. 408, § 1; Aug. 6, 2008, No. 164, § 1; June 26, 2013, No. 33, § 1; July 1, 2014, No. 78, § 14; July 2, 2015, No. 105, § 13.