Who owns the water service line in Clovis, CA
The City owns the water service from its main to your meter and repairs leaks on it. From the meter to the house the pipe is yours, and so is the leak. This is Clovis's own statement.
Which part of the pipe is yours
Yours from the meter to your building
Why, and what to doYours all the way to the main, including the fitting where it joins
Why, and what to do
Where the responsibility divides
- Clovis
- The run from the main to the meter, owned and repaired. Setting out its lead service line inventory, the City states that a service line "consists of a City-owned portion from the City water main to the water meter, and a customer-owned portion from the meter to the house". On leaks it states that it "is responsible for water leaks that are on City water mains or on water services leading from the water main to the water meter", and asks to be called about "a water leak on a City water main or water service up to the water meter".
- The property owner
- Everything behind the meter, for the same purpose. The City states that "leaks which are located behind the water meter are the customer's responsibility to repair", and describes the run from the meter to the house as the "customer-owned portion" of the service line. So on that side the pipe and the leak are both yours.
- What else is worth knowing
- One limit worth keeping in mind on the City's side of the meter. Clovis says plainly that the portion from its main to your meter is City-owned, and says plainly that it handles LEAKS on it. What it has not said anywhere read here is what happens if that length has to be replaced rather than patched - a pipe failing of age rather than springing a leak. Ownership makes that the City's pipe, which is the strongest starting point you could have, but ask rather than assume the answer follows automatically. Clovis also states that the city has no lead water lines at all, and publishes a map of the inventory if you want to see what is recorded against your address.
What Clovis has told the State
Federal rules required every community water system to inventory its service lines and publish the result. These are the figures this one filed.
Clovis has classified more of its service lines than most of California: 0.00% of its lines are unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.
- 39,666
- 0 (0.00%)
What this does not tell you
- This describes who is responsible for which part of the pipe. It is not a record of what your own service line is made of.
- The State's service area map puts 98% of Clovis' land inside the boundary it maps for the city's own water system. Measured 2026-09-11.
- Classified does not mean inspected, and this system inspected less than most. Clovis established 7.2% of its classifications by field inspection, against 22% across California; the rest come from records, the year of construction, or a predictive model.
- These figures were submitted to the State by the water system itself and were read on 2026-09-04. They may not reflect its current inventory - the system's own page is the place to confirm anything about a specific address.
Your other pipe has a different answer
For the sewer lateral, Clovis gives the opposite answer to the one above:
The property owner owns, maintains and repairs the whole sewer lateral, and the City says so about the expensive part in terms: the portion beneath the sidewalk and street, up to and including the point where it connects to the City main. There is no cleanout condition and no carve-out.
Your sewer lateral is yours to the main, fitting included; your water line stops being yours at the meter.
Who pays for the sewer lateral in Clovis, CAHow this compares across California
- Why your two pipes disagree — the places where the sewer and water authorities contradict each other about the run beneath the road.
- Which water systems know what is buried — how much of each California system’s network the utility can actually identify.