§ 214-h. Certain actions by public water suppliers to recover damages
for injury to property. 1. In this section:

(a) "Contaminant" means any physical, chemical, biological or
radiological substance or matter in water and includes but is not
limited to an emerging contaminant listed pursuant to section eleven
hundred twelve of the public health law.

(b) "Person" means an individual, corporation, public corporation,
company, association, partnership, or entity of the state or federal
government.

(c) "Public water supplier" means a person that owns, manages or
operates a community, noncommunity or nontransient noncommunity water
system that provides water to the public for human consumption through
pipes or other constructed conveyances, if such system has at least five
service connections or regularly serves an average of at least
twenty-five individuals daily at least sixty days out of the year.

(d) "Wholesale water supplier" means a person that owns, manages or
operates a public water system that treats a source of water supply as
necessary to produce finished water and then delivers some or all of
that finished water to a public water supplier.

(e) "Source of water supply" means any groundwater aquifer or other
source from which water is taken either periodically or continuously for
drinking, kitchen, cooking or food-processing purposes, or which has
been designated for present or future use as a source of water supply
for domestic or municipal purposes.

(f) "Plant intake" means the works or structures at the head of a
conduit through which water is diverted from a source of water supply
into the treatment plant by a public water supplier.

(g) "Well" means any excavation used for obtaining water by a public
water supplier.

(h) "Raw water" means water immediately before the first or only point
of disinfection or other treatment.

(i) "Emerging contaminant" shall mean any physical, chemical,
microbiological or radiological substance that has ever been or ever
will be identified or listed pursuant to paragraph a or b of subdivision
three of section eleven hundred twelve of the public health law or that
has ever been or ever will be required to be identified or listed as an
emerging contaminant pursuant to paragraph c of subdivision three of
section eleven hundred twelve of the public health law or that is
identified or listed as an emerging contaminant pursuant to any other
law.

2. Notwithstanding any other law that provides for a shorter
limitations period, any civil claim or cause of action brought by a
public water supplier or wholesale water supplier against any person to
recover damages for injury to property owned, managed or operated by a
public water supplier or a wholesale water supplier resulting from the
presence of a contaminant in a source of water supply shall be commenced
within three years of the latest of any of the following:

(a) the detection of a contaminant in the raw water of each well or
plant intake sampling point in excess of any notification level, action
level, maximum contaminant level, or maximum contaminant level goal
established by the commissioner of health, the department of health or
the United States Environmental Protection Agency for that contaminant;

(b) the last wrongful act by any person whose conduct contributed to
the presence of a contaminant in a source of water supply or the raw
water of each well or plant intake sampling point; or

(c) the date the contaminant is last detected in the raw water of each
well or plant intake sampling point in excess of any notification level,
action level, maximum contaminant level, or maximum contaminant level
goal established by the commissioner of health, the department of health
or the United States Environmental Protection Agency for that
contaminant.

3. This three-year period shall apply to each well and each plant
intake for each contaminant separately, and the expiration of the
three-year period at one well or plant intake shall not affect the
three-year period for another well or plant intake.

4. Nothing in this section shall abridge or limit a public water
supplier's or a wholesale water supplier's right to bring an action to
abate an imminent threat of contamination of any well or plant intake or
to recover as damages the costs of such abatement.

5. Any action, civil claim, or cause of action involving an emerging
contaminant that is barred as of the effective date of this subdivision
because the applicable period of limitation has expired is hereby
revived, and such action, civil claim, or cause of action thereon may be
commenced and prosecuted provided such action, civil claim, or cause of
action is commenced either before or within one year and six months
following the effective date of this subdivision.