592                              Laws of Maryland                        Ch. 248

land, any agency or instrumentality thereof, and any municipality,
private corporation, copartnership, association or individual or other
district created under the provisions of this subtitle.

(b) (12) To make and enter into all contracts or agreements, as
the commission may determine, which are necessary or incidental
to the performance of its duties and to the execution of the powers
granted by this subtitle, including contracts with any federal agency
or with any county, on such terms and conditions as the commis-
sion may approve, relating to (i) the use by such agency or by
such county or the inhabitants thereof of any project acquired or
constructed by the commission under this subtitle or the services
therefrom or the facilities thereof, or (ii) the use by the district
of the services or facilities of any water system, [or] sewerage
system or solid waste disposal system or acceptance facility owned
or operated other than by the district. Any such contract may pro-
vide for the collecting of fees, rates or charges for the services and
facilities rendered to a county or to the inhabitants thereof by such
county or by its agents or by the agents of the district, and for
the enforcement of delinquent charges for such services and facili-
ties. The provisions of any such contract and of any ordinance or
resolution of the governing body of a county enacted pursuant
thereto shall be deemed to be for the benefit of bondholders. The
aggregate of any fees, rates or charges which shall be required to
be collected pursuant to any such contract or any ordinance or
resolution enacted thereunder shall be sufficient to pay all obliga-
tions which may be assumed by the other contracting party.

(b) (13) To enter upon and excavate any State, county or mu-
nicipal street, road or alley, or any other public highway, for the
purpose of installing, maintaining and operating the water [and]
, sewerage and solid waste disposal systems or acceptance facilities
provided for under this subtitle, and to construct in any such street,
road, alley or public highway, a water main, sewer or any appur-
tenance thereof, without the receipt of a permit or the payment
of a charge; provided, that whenever any State, county or municipal
highway is to be disturbed the public authority having control
thereof shall be duly notified; and provided further, that said high-
way shall be repaired and left by the district in the same condition
as, or in a condition not inferior to, that existing before said high-
way was torn up, and that all costs incident thereto shall be borne
by the district.

652.

(b) Whenever twenty-five property owners, and also, in Dor-
chester County 25% of the property owners, residing in any locality
in a county, shall in writing petition the commission to have said
locality (the boundaries whereof shall be definitely stated in said
petition) constituted as a new sanitary district or added to an
existing sanitary district to which such locality is contiguous, the
commission, if it approves, shall cause to be made a preliminary
engineering survey of the project to determine the feasibility and
probable cost of providing such area with utilities [,] or facilities,
whether water, sewer, solid waste disposal or otherwise. If the
commission disapproves of the project or is unable or unwilling
to undertake or obtain such preliminary engineering survey, it shall